Burning Bridges
by morganaqueen
Summary: Quinn hasn't set foot in Lima for 10 years but with the death of her mom & her dad clinging to life running isn't an option. Maybe it's time to stop running from the night that ruined her life & the people who took part. Her mother's note says "he isn't who you think he is" But who is he? Her dad? The father of her daughter? Her only love? The county coroner? (Suicide, rape, incest
1. Chapter 1

The day after my father had a stroke my mother took his gun and shot herself. It wasn't a shock that she killed herself but the fact that she did it in such a violent way was. After suffering in her marriage to my father for so long I thought she'd choose a more peaceful way of leaving this world. Perhaps a bottle of pills before bed or sitting in the garage with the car running and the door closed. Instead she made sure the maid had cleaned the house, went grocery shopping, and then shot herself with my father's gun.

Carole Hummel was the one that found her. Even after everything that happened between Finn and I the two still had coffee once a week. When my mother failed to show up at the coffeehouse and didn't answer her phone, Carole stopped by to make sure she was alright. Taking out the spare key Judy had given her, she walked in expecting to find her asleep or gone. Instead she found her lifeless body sitting in a chair in the kitchen.

I didn't ask how she got my number or if she called my sister. I listened to her voice, her words cracking with sadness as she spoke.

"Even in the end your mother couldn't stand the thought of a dirty house. She taped garbage bags on the walls and covered the stove. She was always thinking of you girls."

"Right," was all I could say.

I can't imagine what she was thinking that day as she pulled the tape out of the junk drawer. Did she have the radio going? Maybe one of those audio books she loved listening to. Was she thinking about her granddaughter Beth? Or about how she always wanted to go to Italy? Had she written this on her weekly to-do list? Right between pay the maid and buy toothpaste?

When I was a little girl I asked her what she thought about before she went to sleep. I had been hoping she'd say me. Instead she said she didn't think of anything. She was too tired to think. She was always so tired. No wonder she chose to end it all. But why now? Why now when her life sentence with my father was almost over?

I wish I could ask her what she thought about before she ended it all. I don't need her to say me. I just want to know if she thought of anything. That she felt something and if it felt like freedom. And then, if I could, I would ask her what that felt like.

* * *

I drove through the night. The only time I stopped was to pee or replenish my stash. I had been driving for ten hours before I started seeing signs for Lima. The exits rolled by like pages out of a book I hadn't picked up for ten years. I hadn't seen or spoken to my mother since I was 18. Ten years. I only wish it had been just as long that I thought about my life in Lima. Feeling the craving the closer I got to town, I took a couple gulps from my flask. Anything to ease this pain.

I found the exit easily and pulled into the rich part of town. I could have found the house with my eyes closed. It was still the same after all these years. Well taken care of by a team of handymen and gardeners and maids. A perfect exterior couldn't hide the horror within.

Noah Puckerman, the town sheriff, leaned against his patrol car. I had called ahead as Carole had suggested and asked him to met me. I hadn't seen him for seven years. Not since that night in the motel room. One of the many nights of my life I try to forget. Just looking at him makes me think of Beth. Did she look like him? Like me? I'd probably never know.

"Hey Q," he said, walking over to give me a hug. "I'm sorry about your mom." Besides the fact that he no longer had a mohawk he looked just the same as he had in high school. Just the same as he did the night my life ended.

"How about we do the coroner first. Then you'll have time alone in the house before Frannie gets here." Getting into his car, he cleared the passenger seat for me.

"I'll be right with you. I have to use the bathroom." I turned and started heading for the house.

"NO," Puck shouted, getting out of the car and hurrying after me. "I can't let you do this alone."

I don't ask if legally he couldn't let me go in yet or if he wanted to be there for me emotionally. Instead I stand back and let him open the door.

"I guess Carole told you there wasn't a lot to clean up. Your mother made it easy."

One of the only things in life she had made easy though I didn't voice that thought out loud. I walked past him once the door was open. The living room looked like it was barely used. Just the way her father liked it. Moving to the kitchen, I froze. This had been the heart of my family life growing up. The one room my father did allow us to use. The room where my mother's life had ended.

"Let's go," I said. I turned to go. My need to leave overshadowed my need to pee. I calculated in my head how much alcohol I'd need later in order to come back and stay. I didn't think there'd ever be enough.

"She left this." Puck picked up a piece of paper inside a ziplock bag and handed it to me.

"I don't want to touch it if it's evidence."

"Your mother did that to keep the blood from getting on the note."

"Fuck." I said as I shook my head. "She put her suicide note in a ziplock bag?"

"Kind of considerate, isn't it?" Puck asked.

"I was thinking pretty sick actually," I replied, pulling out the note.

"I'll give you a moment," he moved past me to the living room.

Looking from the empty room to my mother's last words on earth, I dropped it on the table. A trip to the coroner had to be a lot easier. "Let's go," I said, moving past him and out the front door.

We didn't say anything on the drive over. What was there to say? Even though we had a daughter together we still hadn't seen each other in seven years. We weren't close. Not anymore.

I shook as I walked inside the morgue. Ten years and a gun made me wonder what my once perfect mother looked like now. Puck had called ahead to let the coroner know we were on our way. He stood by the door waiting for us. After all these years as a failed actor it looked like Cooper Anderson had settled on a new career. He still reminded me of an actor. The way he said his name and cradled my hand. The smoothness of his voice. It was almost like he was playing the role of a coroner. "This way," was all he said as he lead me down the hall.

Going through the doors, he paused. "Your mother is over here," he said.

For a moment, hearing someone say 'your mother is over here' made me think she'd be waiting for me in a chair. Her hair done perfectly and her purse in her lap.

"Hey mom," I'd say as I give her the smile I only saved for her.

"Over here Miss Fabray," Cooper said softly as if he was afraid to wake the dead bodies.

She was in a bag. Just like her letter.

"As soon as you can identify her please let us know. Try not to look at her face. It's in bad shape," he warned before he unzipped her.

There was no need to look at her face to tell it was Judy Fabray. I just had to look at her left hand dangling off the table. I nodded and turned away.

"That's her," I said.

"Her wedding ring?" Puck asked.

"The tip of her ring finger," I pointed out.

Both men looked, noticing for the first time my mother's missing first joint and nail bed on that finger.

"Was that a birth defect?" Cooper asks.

Pulling out a cigarette, I shook my head. "No. Marriage." Lighting it, I took a drag. "My mother left my father once. He found her, brought her back, and did that to her. He said if she did it again he'd cut off her whole hand next time. She never left again," I explained, walking out the doors.


	2. Chapter 2

When I got back to the house, I pulled my car into the garage and entered through the side door into the kitchen. It was lunchtime by the time I got back. It felt odd being alone after all these years. Without my father in the living room watching television or in his office working. Without my mother sitting at the table working on some fundraiser or getting ready for some event up in her room or making sure the maids did their job. My mother would always be part of this house.

Opening the refrigerator, I looked around for something to eat. Growing up I could always tell the mood of the household based on what was inside. If there was food things were good. My mother was taking care of this family instead of sleeping all day. No food and it meant my mother had given up hope. That had only happened once. Never again after she lost her finger but I still always checked. I was always more worried about what her leaving would do to me than to her.

The refrigerator was full. A jug of lemonade and a stack of BLT sandwiches sat on the top shelf. My favorite. She knew I would come.

Going to the sink, I throw up.

I sat at the table with a damp towel on my forehead and my mother's note in my hand. I couldn't bring myself to read it just yet. Waking up a few hours later, my head pounded. From lack of alcohol or from the events of today I wasn't sure.

Getting up, I head up to what was once my bathroom. Nothing in the house had really changed. Everything looked just as it had the last night I was here. Pausing at once was my room, I observed the fact that it was the only thing that changed. My father probably had my things packed up and thrown away the day after it happened but if my mother had any say they were probably just in storage.

Washing my hands and face, I head back down to the kitchen. As I look through a cupboard for a tea bag, I sigh in relief when I find a bottle of vodka instead. My mother had probably hidden it from my father. Pouring some into a teacup, I grab a sandwich from the fridge and sit down with my mother's note. Alcohol was the only way I was going to get through reading it. Looking at the words, I recognize the neat handwriting from her private school education. She told me once that anyone could have neat handwriting if they just took the time. Based on this penmanship, this was a note she took her whole life to write.

"Quinnie,

He isn't who you think he is.

Mom xxxooo"

I slid the note out, my hands shaking as I held it up. I wasn't sure what I hoped I'd find. A hidden message. Another note on the back. Anything.

'He isn't who you think he is'.

Counting the words, I frown. Ten including the hugs and kisses. One for every year I had been gone.

Shoving the note back into the bag, I grab the bottle of vodka and head for the stairs. Feeling the pull from the bag I stopped. Creeping back downstairs, I sealed the bag as if tucking in a baby before heading back to my old room. I had hoped the vodka would help me sleep but all I did was toss and turn. I tried my parents bed and the couch before falling asleep in the tub.

* * *

"Are you going to sleep all day?" Puck's voice pierces the silence.

I flip him off, trying to stretch. A bad idea considering how my head feels. "How long…." I start to ask, covering my eyes from the light.

"My shift just ended," he said as he leaned down and wrapped his arms around me. He lifted me out of the tub in one swift motion.

"Shit Q. You're skin and bones. I could barely tell that yesterday." Hugging me hard, my ribs pressed against his. I took in his familiar smell. In spite of everything, my body still remembered his. It probably always would.

Pushing away, he set me down. I looked at my reflection and saw what he saw. What the whole world saw. Dark puffy circles under bloodshot eyes, unwashed hair falling around my face, and pale cheeks with hollow indents. It was hard to believe there wasn't two corpses my sister had to bury.

It had been seven years since the night in the hotel when he walked away. The rain poured around him as he pulled a jacket around his Air Force uniform and climbed into his friend's car. I watched from the window of the room I had been staying in for three days. Puck had tracked me down and had almost convinced me he cared. That is until he explained why he was there. I threw him out and made a promise to myself to drink until I forgot. I was still trying.

"Coffee?" he asked as he lead me downstairs. He had a pot going along with a box of doughnuts. I didn't want either. Between him and the note the room felt small.

"Did you see the sandwiches? She knew I was coming," I sat down at the table, ignoring both the offered cup and the doughnut.

"I never thought I'd see you again," he sat down across from me, cup in hand. "I miss you."

He didn't mention the thing that connected us or rather the person. Beth was one topic they both agreed along time ago was too painful to talk about.

"Have you heard from my sister?" I took a sip of the coffee, the liquid burning as it went down. "Do you know when she's coming?"

"Q…"

"Frannie?"

"She told me she'll be here this afternoon." He looked at me but I avoided his eyes.

"You called her? You talk to her?

"Sometimes."

"My mom?"

"Sometimes. When I saw her around town."

So everyone kept in touch. My leaving hadn't changed anything. In fact it had seemed to strength their relationships. Good to know.

"Why'd you come?" he asked, giving up looking into my eyes.

"She left me the note."

"So?"

"She knew where I was. She gave Carole my number."

I hadn't been able to place the voice at first after not hearing it for so many years. Plus the fact that I was sleeping off a binge. It felt like I was dreaming the conversation. All I heard was gun, blood, and stroke along with a note addressed to me.

"I gave Carole your number," he admitted .

"I thought my mom…" I frown deep.

"No."

I stand up and bring my cup to the sink. My eyes fill with tears. The idea that she knew where I was had gotten me here. I should have known better. What kind of mother lets her daughter go and never looks for her?

"I'm going to go take a bath."

"That's all you have to say?" He looks at me, his eyes pleading for forgiveness.

"Call me when my sister gets here." I turn, heading back upstairs.

* * *

Frannie got there as I was getting dressed. Looking out the window, I saw her yelling orders at someone I assumed was her husband.

"Did you find out what hospital dad is in?" She asks as I come downstairs. No hello. No how are you. That wasn't who we were.

Puck looked at us, watching my sister take in my appearance. She had always been the pretty sister. The sister that was off in college by the time I entered high school. As a result my friends always thought she was a mystery.

"This is Willard," she said almost as an after thought, nodding her head toward her husband. He was tall, blonde, and blue eyed. An all American just like their parents had wanted.

"Have you seen dad?" She asked me. The casual way she brought up their father caught me off guard. It hadn't occurred to me until then that Russell Fabray would be a subject anyone would bring up around me. The mention of his name and the nearness of Puck and Frannie brought it all back. My body's memory betrayed me. My legs gave way and I had to hold onto a chair to steady myself.

"I think Q wanted to focus on your mother first," Puck explained. "She already identified the body and filled out the paperwork. I can help with the funeral."

Pulling out her phone, my sister started calling hospitals to find out where their father had ended up. Later that afternoon, her and Willard left to go see him. From what the nurse said I thought it was pointless. He was in a coma after all. Combined with his love of alcohol and temper people thought he'd die a long time ago. Not me. I thought he'd lived forever. Monsters always do.

* * *

Frannie was our father's favorite. He showered her with gifts to show his love and she always forgave him. She understood him in a way my mom and I couldn't. Or maybe it was him that understood that giving her a present bought her acceptance. Even after he had cut off their mother's finger she defended him. I'm guessing that diamond ring helped matters.

The night he did it she laid in my bed and said I could never understand how hard it was for their father to stay in a place like Lima and to have a wife that couldn't keep him happy.

With Frannie and Willard at the hospital, Puck headed home to make some funeral plans. I headed to the backyard for a smoke. Looking at the yard, I saw my mother's touches everywhere. The rose bushes. The patio set. It was all Judy Fabray.

I remembered the birthday parties she threw us as kids. The homemade cake. The way she helped with homework. The hugs and kisses. She was not the woman who closed to door when my father went roaming. Not the one who let me go and never tried to find me.

He isn't who you think he is….

Getting into my car, I head out to a bar on the edge of town. There was less of a chance to run into anyone I knew there. I picked a booth in the corner just to be safe. It took several beers to start feeling numb.

"That pitcher for sharing?"

Looking up, I spotted the familiar face of Cooper Anderson, County Coroner and Blaine Anderson's older brother.

"Hands that touch dead bodies don't come near my beer," I said.

"You're joking right?" he asked with a laugh as he sat down.

I shook my head, watching him order one from the waitress.

"So you went to school with my brother didn't you?"

I just shrug. Small talk and I never got along.

We sat in silence for a bit, sipping our beer. I wasn't going to be the first to break this silence.

Finally he sat his drink down, "You're Quinn right? Quinn Fabray."

"People call me Q."

"Well Quinn I'm sorry about your mother. She was a wonderful woman," he commented.

"You knew her?" I ask.

He nodded, "Yeah. We're used to run into each other at the park after church. She would go there to watch her grandson. I'd go for fresh air and to read."

"Did you say grandson?"

"Yeah…"

"My mother didn't have a grandson." Just a granddaughter but last time I heard she was living in New York and even if she was back in Lima I couldn't picture Shelby letting my mom see her.

"Oh… on Sundays she watched the children play. I just assumed." He shrugged.

"Nope. No grandchildren." That wasn't true but Beth really didn't count nor did I know if Frannie had any kids. Tossing down a few singles, I almost fall over in my hurry to leave. Cooper steadies me and I flinch at his touch.

"Thanks," I mumble.

"You okay getting home?" He ask, following me to the door.

I nod but he ignores it and follows me home anyway. I pushed in the car lighter and for a moment considered smoking two cigarettes at the same time.


	3. Chapter 3

The alarm went off at seven in my old bedroom. I could hear Frannie going to shut it off. I was asleep in the tub again. As long as I had enough to drink I could sleep anywhere. Puck was down in the kitchen making coffee for the day. The fact that he had a key wasn't surprising though it did make me wonder just how close he had been with my mother in the end.

Pulling myself up out of the tub, I prayed for my legs to stop shaking. It was going to be a long day if they didn't. Frannie had picked out a dress for me to wear to the service. It was one of our mother's favorites. The fabric draped off my frame, doing nothing to hide my rib cage sticking out or the sharpness of my collar bone. A pair of matching pumps completes the look. I grab a purse from my mother's closet and stuff my cigarettes, a lighter, and an airplane size bottle of bourbon inside.

I pick out a bracelet from her jewelry box. I had saved up my allowance to buy her it the Christmas before I left. It's still in its original tissue paper. She never wore it. I'm about to close the box when I see an old receipt at the bottom. Picking it up, I turn it over and see my mother's neat handwriting.

"7lbs 10ozs—22 inches. Name?"

Frowning, I put the receipt back. It couldn't be about Beth. She had only been 6lbs and my mother knew her name.

Everyone is already downstairs by the time I get there. Feeling the bottle in my purse, I sigh in relief. It's the only way I'm going to get through today. I had spent the night getting ready for the reception with Puck. The deli platters were in the fridge, the chairs were set, everything was ready. As long as we talked only about the service everything was okay.

My mother had gone to the same church since we moved to Lima. Even after everything that had happened she was still well loved there. The monthly check my father gave probably helped. The church was almost full by the time we arrived. I ignore the fact that half of it is former glee club members. I do wonder if it's because they want to be here for me or are just curious to see if I'd actually come. Most turn in an attempt to avoid my eyes. I know they were just talking about me. Puck takes my arm and leads me to my seat. I don't say it out loud but I'm grateful for him. Neither Frannie or I speak. We let the pastor do that. My mother would have wanted it that way. I slip out halfway through and down the bottle of bourbon in the bathroom.

Every detail was planned by my mother. The coffin. Her dress. The songs song at the funeral. She left the information with the pastor of our church who arranged everything out of respect for my mother. Instead of helping with the funeral, I wonder why he didn't consider stopping her from killing herself.

Most of the old glee club followed us to the grave. None of them dared speak to me. At least not yet. There was only one plot next to my mother. She really had thought of everything.

* * *

I count a dozen Bundt cakes on the counter at home. It's part of tradition here. They're easy to serve and even easier to buy. People could easily bring something else but no one was willing to break tradition. I wonder how many there will be at my father's funeral. Probably none.

The mourners offer their condolences but no one mentions my father. At least not in front of me. They don't know exactly why I left but many suspect it has something to do with him. The glee club knows my relationship with him was never the best. Even before he kicked me out when I was pregnant with Beth. None knew the truth.

Cooper Anderson stopped by to pay his respects. He had been at the church as well. He introduced himself to Frannie and told her how brave I had been at the morgue.

"Lucy Quinn?" Frannie shook her head. "She runs from everything."

"I don't see her running now," he pointed out before excusing himself.

I excuse myself and take refuge outside with a smoke and a beer. Anything is better than being in there.

He isn't who you think he is…

I down the bottle and smoke three in a row before finding the strength to go back inside. Hearing the doorbell, I let Frannie get it as I head for another beer in the kitchen. I sat at the table, my head feeling light. I've lost count of the number of beers I've had.

"Hello?" A man's voice sounded as someone walked into the kitchen. The tone made the back of my neck bristle. The voice matched the body: smooth, tall, and blond at the top.

"Holy shit!" Puck's voice cracked as he entered the kitchen and saw me frozen in place. There was no slow motion revelation. There was nothing expect the cold, hard drop of fear- like I used to get before every glee competition.

Looking from Puck to the man, I could feel the door to my past flying open. Finally my legs gave way. Everything went dark and for one brief, happy moment I thought I was dead.

* * *

I woke up on my mother's bed, the only light coming from the hallway. Looking at the clock I saw it was only 9:30 though it felt so much later. I could hear people downstairs eating. My head hurt like hell when I tried but failed to sit up.

"You're lucky you didn't barf," a man spoke behind me, his shadow on the wall I faced. The shadow disappeared as I pulled myself up on my elbows before swinging my legs over the side and trying to stand up.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the voice said again, coming from the direction of my mother's bureau. He may have been across the room but his voice resonated inside me, deep down, past the well of alcohol, beyond the granite resolve and the cold clench of denial. In spite of my best efforts to kill it, his voice still lived in me.

I felt my body shake as I tried to breathe. Before I knew what I was doing, I was on the floor with my head in my hands, consumed by a desire to cry. I took a breath and felt a rush of tears for the first time in many years.

I heard his lighter as he lit a cigarette and saw the burning ember near his face. I imagined him standing there watching me cry and feeling nothing, not even pity.

"I should have told you we moved back," he said, coming closer to either me or the door. I couldn't tell which but I hoped it was the door. "I lost track of you."

"I'm in New York now," I mumbled, wiping at the snot. "You come alone?"

"Of course," he said as I felt him getting closer. "I'm sorry about your mom." He opened the door, the light letting me see part of his face.

"Please…" I pause, not sure what I'm begging for. Please leave me alone? Please don't speak? Please go?

"I don't suppose you'd…" He stopped, his back to me.

"No. I'm leaving after everything is settled here."

"Suit yourself." The door closed behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

_After the brutal winter we had, I was grateful for the warmth. I parked in front of the house though I didn't get out right away. Glee practice had went over like usual but I didn't care. Coming home was always the worst part of the day. After giving up Beth my father had allowed me to move back home and how could I say no? I had been only 16 after all. It wasn't like I had many options. I had no options really._

_Frannie was off being this golden child at college. She only came home during the holidays, summers and the occasional weekend. I didn't mind. It wasn't like we had a lot in common anyway. Nothing actually._

_Since quitting the Cheerios the only other extracurricular activity I have besides glee was avoiding my father at all cost. It was harder than it sounded. My father was a lawyer for a living. You could always tell what kind of mood he was in by where he parked his car. In the garage meant he was home working on a big case. In the driveway meant he wasn't working and just wanted to show off his success to the neighbors and had usually had a few. If his car wasn't here he was either still at work or off somewhere with mom. Today he is sitting in the living room, a familiar blond haired boy beside him._

_"Quinn you know Sam right? I believe he goes to school with you. His father, Dwight, went to college with me." They both glanced up at me._

_Dwight Evans was my parents oldest friend. The three had met in college. Dwight had moved to Kentucky before I was born. I should have realized Sam was his son._

_It turned out that Dwight was moving back to Kentucky with his wife and two youngest children. He didn't want to keep interrupting Sam's education though and had asked my parents to take him in. They agreed that he could stay in the garage apartment as long as he actually went to school and didn't slack off. So that was how my classmate moved in with my family._

_He worked hard to become part of the family. He talked to my father about the cases he was working on, buttering him up by saying he wanted to be a lawyer. He helped my mother with dinner and the dishes afterwards. When Frannie was home he asked her about her life at school and what she was studying. He worked so hard to form relationships with everyone that it felt as if he was auditioning to be a part of our family. As if this were a family worth getting into._

_I stuck to my promise that I'd avoid anyone who might get in my way of getting out. I avoided Sam Evans like the plague. I stuck to homework, glee and drawing._

_"You spend a lot of time with that book." Sam observed one day as we waited for glee to start._

_"So?" I didn't look up._

_"What are you drawing?"_

_"It's none of your business."_

_"You don't like me," he said with a laugh._

_"I would have to care about you not to like you."_

* * *

_In truth I found him fascinating. When my father wasn't around I would watch him work with my mother or as he sat to do homework. He was a reminder that there was life outside this town. Outside Lima and Ohio._

_On warm days I would sit in the backyard and thought about the big dreams I had. About how I was going to leave not just Lima but Ohio. It was tempting to tell Puck but I kept reminding myself that just because two people shared a child didn't mean they were close. It had been Puck who had introduced me to comics the months I lived with him and soon after having Beth I started to make my own. Ms. Pillsbury had said it was good therapy for me and asked a couple times to see them though I never showed her. It was tempting to show Puck but I don't think he would have understood._

_By the time I was a senior I had filled two sketchbooks and was working on a third. I would work on them in the wood down the street from my house. It was the only place I felt safe. I kept the books in a garbage bag inside a tree stump. Bits of paper filled with my ideas were stuffed inside the books. In the winter months I found a spot in the garage to hide them._

_The first week Sam lived with us he followed me out there. My father was passed out from drinking too much. It took me a while to realize he was there as I read out loud about how Luc was fighting the evil Hand. Hearing someone behind me I froze and dropped my book. Lose sheets went everywhere. I tried picking up as many pieces of paper as I could as I glared up at him. I was forced to take the book with me so he wouldn't find it. I was running out of places to hide._

* * *

_I left before Sam the next day. Two books were hidden in the garage but I had the third with me so I could check for damage. I never gave him a ride even though we were going to the same place. Besides he had a truck. I planned to go after school back to the wood to gather up any missing sheets of paper._

_What I hadn't planned for was for my car not to start after glee practice. Sam saw me start to walk and offered me a ride. The reply I gave him was my middle finger. That didn't stop him from following along in his truck as I walked._

_"Get in," He kept calling. He stopped beside me, leaning out to hand me a gift bag. I didn't know what to do with it. It had been years since I got a present from someone including my own parents._

_Taking the bag, I got in next to him. Inside the bag was a set of pens and a black leather sketchbook. Flipping through it, I paused at the first page._

_"Luc's Adventures" was written in his messy script. He knew._

_I didn't say anything. Instead I hugged it to my chest. It was beautiful but it was going to be one more thing I'd have to hide._

_He opened the glove compartment and pulled out the sheets of paper from last night. He didn't have to tell me he read them. I already knew. He started driving as I held the book in one hand and the papers in the other. Tears came to my eyes as he drove and he handed me the tissue from his pocket. He placed his hand on top of mine to comfort me but quickly moved away when I said I didn't like being touched._

_"Tell me about Luc," he asked as he drove._

_I felt something shift inside me. I wasn't afraid of being near him. Not like how I usually was around guys. I had a desire to slide closer to him but I fought it. I told him about Puck and the comics. I told him about Beth and Ms. Pillsbury encouraging me to draw as a form of therapy after giving up my daughter._

_"So she's you?" he asked._

_I shook my head. "She's everything I wish I was. Strong. Beautiful. Smart."_

_"Don't be so hard on yourself," he glanced at me as he pulled into the McDonald's. He ordered us each an ice cream cone and fries to share and parked in the parking lot._

_"You're okay Q," he smiled at me. "Not half as stuck up as I thought."_

_"Wish I could say the same about you," I joked._

_"Will you show me more?"_

_I shrugged, "I don't know."_

_"I think you will."_

_"Maybe."_

_He placed his hand on top of mine. I didn't pull away. Instead I entangled our fingers. Maybe touching wasn't so bad._

* * *

"Q…"

Puck stood where Sam stood before. Rather it had been minutes or hours I wasn't sure. My head hurt and hair stuck to my cheeks from where my tears had been.

"Have you returned to the land of the living?" he joked.

"My mother's dead."

Turning on the light, he moved to sit on the bed behind me. I resisted the urge to lean against him. I didn't like touching.

"You alright?" he asked, standing and looking down at me. "It's midnight."

I looked up at him, really studying him for the first time since getting back. I notice the ring for the first time but don't ask who he married. Did he have kids? Was Beth a big sister?

"Is everybody gone?" I ask instead of answering.

"Almost. Cooper said to say goodbye. He seems to think you're friends. Probably because you're such a lovely person," he teased.

"I used to be nice," I point out.

"When?" I know he didn't mean for it to sting but it does.

He starts shaking out the bedspread and pillow. I watch for a moment before asking what he was looking for.

"Sam called. He's pretty sure he left his lighter here."

There it was. His name. Spoken aloud. I couldn't have Puck, the memory of Sam and myself all in one room. My body shook just thinking about it.

"You do this every night? Drink until you pass out?" he asked.

"I didn't pass out."

"Tell that to Sam. He carried you up here. You dropped your beer and hit the floor. Frannie and I told everyone you were just tired and hadn't been eating ."

"I was tired and I haven't eaten," I pointed out.

"Whatever. Sam carried you and put you to bed. I cleaned up your mess." The 'like always' was left unsaid. He was good at cleaning up my messes.

Puck kept searching the bed, annoying me in the process.

"Look somewhere else. Hell what do you think we were doing?" I glared at him.

"When it comes to you and Sam it's hard to tell." He picked up the lighter off the bureau.

"You haven't kept in touch with him then?" he asked, leaning against the wall.

I shook my head.

"Were you happy to see him?"

There would never be an adequate answer even if I had forever to think about it. I shrug.

"Were you happy to see me?"

Again I just shrug.

"He has a place here in town. He's been back for a while."

I pick up my pack of smokes, taking one out.

Puck moved closer, using Sam's lighter for me. I feel the scar along his hand. It's small and rough. I always made a point of putting my thumb on it when we held hands.

"He has a kid." His voice is soft as if he's trying not to hurt me. I pull my hand away and take a drag of my smoke.

"I know."


	5. Chapter 5

_Sam and I started riding to school together a couple of times a week. Since Puck in sophomore year it was the closest I came to actually having a boyfriend. It would be a lie to say I had never been touched by a man besides Puck or Finn. But the truth would be worse. So I found a place to live between a lie and the truth. Until Sam, I got along just fine._

_In just a few weeks I had gone from avoiding the world to seeking the company of another person. I wanted to sing duets with him in glee, to hold hands as we walked down the hallway, to steal kisses between classes. I wanted to be near him. I knew what happiness was when he was around. Those days were like a long, slow drink._

_A couple days before spring break Sam had to stay after glee to work on a song with Finn. I had nowhere to be which meant I had to be home according to my parents rules or really my father's rules. Seeing me walk through the door, my father called me to his side. He was in the living room watching the news. I glanced at my mother who gave me the 'he's been asking for you' look. The look I always dreaded seeing on her face. It never meant anything good._

_He looked me over before patting the armrest next to him. It wasn't a choice. It was never a choice. I sat on the very edge of the armrest. With one hand he took a gulp of beer, the other resting on my thigh. Since it was warm out I didn't wear tights like I did during the winter. Winter months were better for dealing with my father._

_I focused on Luc and the fight she'd have against the Hand as my father moved his hand along my leg. I would draw it tonight. One day Luc would get out. She'd find a new home in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. Somewhere far away from Lima or the state of Ohio._

_I was only released when Frannie walked in. She had gotten done with her classes early and had decided to come home for spring break. I had never been happier to see her in my life. Maybe having his favorite daughter around he would be in a better mood._

* * *

_Dinner was a quiet affair. Sam still wasn't home which left just the Fabrays. My father complained about what my mother made like always. She could make his favorite and still he wouldn't be happy. For dessert she had made chocolate cake._

_"Don't give Quinn any. She keeps eating like she does and they'll start calling her Lucy Caboosey again," my father instructed my mother who just nodded in agreement._

_"I don't want any," I snap angrily._

_In one swift motion my father had his hand on my neck and was pushing my face into his slice of cake. I felt my eye hit the glass plate but I knew better than to cry out. Things would be worse if I did. It felt like forever before he finally let me go. My mother looked at me horrified but my sister just rolled her eyes and started on her own slice. I hurried outside to the wood._

_I pulled out the sketchbook I kept hidden but even that couldn't help at the moment. Some nights I couldn't draw my way out._

_I didn't know what time it was when I finally worked up the courage to go back. With any luck he'd be asleep or in his office working so I could slip upstairs without him knowing. What I didn't expect to see was Sam with his hands down Santana's skirt. She was leaning against the garage door and though Sam was blocking her it was easy to recognize the brown hair. I stood in the shadows, my heart breaking with every kiss._

* * *

The sound of the phone woke me the next day. It took a moment to remember where I was. The tub in my old bathroom. The one place I felt safe. I glanced at my phone. 8:00 am and my mother was still dead. I still wore the dress from the funeral though the shoes were long gone. Getting out of the tub, I went to wash the makeup off from yesterday.

Puck was downstairs by the time I came down. A cup of coffee and store bought muffins awaited me along with a new pack of cigarettes. I took one out as I sat down. My mother wasn't here tell me no. She was growing cold in her casket.

"Frannie went to go see your father before she heads home. She has work and treatments to get back to," he explained, picking at his own muffin.

"Treatments for what?" I had assumed she'd stay and take care of things around here. What did one do when their parent killed themselves?

"They're trying to have a baby," he explained. "They've been trying for years. We talked last night after you passed out."

I don't correct him. "People actually try to have kids?"

"Some people try to get over their problems." He doesn't have to mention Beth for me to know what he's referring to.

"Are you talking about Frannie or me?" I ask instead.

"I'm taking about all of us. Don't you think it's time?" he ask, looking up from his muffin. "You've been gone how many years? Eight? Nine?"

"Going on ten." Like he doesn't know already.

"How long are you going to do this?" He stood up, going to get another cup of coffee.

"Do what?"

"Hold me responsible. I'm NOT responsible." He held onto the counter for strength. "I didn't ruin your life."

"If my life is a mess it is my own. I take responsibility and your mess is yours. You live with what you did." I put my cigarette out on my muffin.

"I didn't do anything. I helped you. I saved you." His voice broke.

"You saved me?" I almost laughed.

"I wouldn't have let him kill you. "

"You should have. It would have been easier."

"I said I was sorry," he mumbled, setting his cup down and going to help Frannie with the groceries when we heard her pull up.

Neither one said anything about the tears falling from my eyes when they came in with the groceries.

Frannie explained how I just had to get the bills and stuff in order. How they had to wait to see what happened with their father and how their mother probably already took care of most things. "I figured you could use a break," she said.

"I could have a great life in New York," I point out.

She placed a hand on top of mine, "Do you?"

Her tenderness catches me off guard.

* * *

_I drove myself to school the next morning and avoided Sam all day. No one asks about the black eye. Not even him though I can tell he wants to. I thought about buying a bus ticket for New York but knew that would just make things worse._

_Sam pulls in at the same time as me but I hurry inside to get away from him. There's a note on the counter from my mother._

_"Quinnie,_

_At the club with your father and sister. Leftovers in fridge,_

_Mom xxxooo"_

_So I get a black eye and they get the club? Wonderful._

_Sam came in a few minutes later. "So Breadstix for dinner then? It'll give you a chance to tell me why you've been avoiding me and how you got that black eye."_

_"I have homework and nothing happened to my eye." I stuff the note into my pocket._

_"It's bruised. Was it an accident?" He looks at me as I head to the door. "Are you mad at me?"_

_I pause, "I saw you last night with…." There's no need to say her name._

_"You spying on me?"_

_"Oh yes. I'm obsessed with you. Leave me alone." I start to head out but he grabs my arm._

_"Q it isn't like that. I thought we were just friends. It was just Santana." He pulls me closer, his free hand going to my eye. "Did someone do this?"_

_I look down at the ground, not knowing what to say. The truth may set you free but it was also hard to say. "My eye hit a glass plate."_

_His finger gently brushed along the bruise, "You act like this is normal. Who hurt you?"_

_"You are," I look down._

_"I didn't mean to." He leaned down and kissed my forehead._

* * *

_He buys me a plate of spaghetti when we finely make it to Breadstix. He laughs at how I struggle eating the noodles._

_"You look like a little girl."_

_"I was never a little girl," I say between bites._

_"I bet you were sweet."_

_"You know friends don't mess around with each other," I change the subject._

_"You're right. I'll try to control myself but it's hard." A blush appeared on my cheeks. "I'm not the fall in love and settle down type of guy and I'm not just saying that because we're young, " he warns but that's fine with me. Love wasn't real anyway._

_"There's two types of sex. Sex for love and sex for sex," he explains but I start to laugh._

_"There's more kinds of sex than that." I finish my dinner and stand up._

* * *

_In his truck he asks about my eye again. I sit in silence, trying to find the right words._

_"It was an accident," I say but by the look he gives me it's clear he doesn't believe me._

_"My father did it." I avoid looking at him._

_"Not on purpose?" He ask. "It was an accident?"_

_I watch the houses out the window. "Define accident."_

_Pulling over to the side of the road, he turns to look at me. "What happened?"_

_"He said I was fat and couldn't have cake. I said I didn't want any. He shoved my face into a slice and my eye hit the plate." We sit there a few moments, my back to him._

_"He probably didn't mean it." He sighed. "He's been so nice to me."_

_That was his conclusion? This was why I never told anyone. Not Finn's mom. Not Puck's mom. Not even Mr. Schue. Adults were blind when it came to this stuff. They never wanted to look down on another parent and instead blamed the child. Sam was a child though. A year younger than me even. I thought he'd believe me out of everyone._

_"Let's go." I blink back the tears threatening to fall._

_"Do you want me to talk to him? Get him to apologize?" He offers, starting the truck._

_"If you talk to my father I'll never speak took you again. I'll jump off a bridge or something and you'll be the one to blame," I warn._

_"Okay on one condition," He says as I turned to look at him. "You let me kiss you goodnight."_

_I roll my eyes, turning to look out the window again._

_"It's just a kiss Quinn. It doesn't mean anything," he points out._

_"I know," I nod in agreement._

_"You should loosen up." He parks behind my car. I hurry and get out. He walks me to the door and as he leans down to kiss me, I go inside before he can._

_The light is on in my parents bedroom, the door slightly ajar. I can see the shadow of my father watching us as I go inside._


	6. Chapter 6

**/Just a warning but there is some abuse in this chapter.**

Puck and Frannie send me to return the deli platters, not realizing I'd use the deposit to go to the liquor store. Anything was better than staying at home and helping them in the kitchen. It seemed that Frannie was determined to have one last family meal before her and Willard went home.

I would never admit it but I didn't mind staying in Lima a little longer and sorting everything out. I was working in a rundown diner in Brooklyn. I was about to get fired for showing up late. It was one of many failed jobs. I had failed out of my last semester of college for the second time in a row and was living out of my car due to getting evicted for late rent. Some people were late bloomers but I hadn't bloomed at all.

My car contained the stuff from two dozen jobs, a dozen apartments, and four and a half years of college. It all fit neatly in the back of my car. A car paid for with stolen money. For the second time I left a place I called home and never looked back.

* * *

I ignored the car parked in front of the house when I got back. A half finished bottle of Jack Daniel's was hidden under the front seat of my car.

Cooper Anderson stood up from the couch when I walked in. Looking from Puck to Frannie to Willard, I glared at them, demanding answers.

"I ran into him and we got to talking. He said he had some advice so I invited him," my sister explained.

"I want to help," Cooper shrugged.

"Yeah but I don't understand why," I snap, going into the kitchen for a beer. It was the only way I would get through this. Going back to the living room, I sit down in the only empty chair. Mom's favorite one by the window. It feels like sitting on a ghost.

"If you move him to a nursing home you'll have to use his assets before the state will pay for anything," Cooper explained. "If the house was in both your parents names it's all his now. Do you have the deed?"

"That's Quinn's first job," Frannie looks at me with a hopeful smile which makes me want to barf.

"Pulling the plug sounds like a better thing to do," I mumble earning me a smile from Puck and a glare from my sister.

"If we can find the important papers we can figure out what dad would have wanted," Frannie points out.

"What's the 'we' thing?" Another glare from my sister.

"It's okay. I understand," Cooper pipes up.

"You do? How big of you." And another.

"I promised your mother I'd help," he admits.

Why doesn't it surprise me that she talked to him about this?

He isn't who you think he is….

* * *

_Spring break ended and Frannie went back to college. As a parting gift we enjoyed chocolate cake and no bruises. Sam and I kept our distance after our dinner together at Breadstixs. I knew when it was safe to be around a man and this wasn't it. I was pretty sure he knew to stay away too. Rather that was a natural thing or the fact that my father had seen us in the truck together and warned him off I didn't know._

_Sam was getting ready to head back to Kentucky for the summer after school ended. His father was supposed to fly in and drive back with him. With all the excitement of Dwight Evans coming to town my father neglected his job of being the family terror and drunk._

_My mother had everything cleaned and ready for his arrival. Anything to impress my father's only friend. The fact that I had just graduated went ignored. It wasn't like I had any plans after high school anyway. Not like Frannie who was home for the summer._

_We were sitting and waiting a good two hours before Mr. Evans was due to arrive. No one said anything as we waited his arrival. Two hours passed with no one coming. After another two hours in silence, Sam headed up to his apartment. An hour later Mr. Evans finally called. He gave some excuse to my mother and asked if Sam could stay the summer. All she could do was say it was fine._

_My mother served up a slice of pie and gave it to Frannie to give to Sam. Surprisingly she gave it to me to give to him instead. Maybe my sister wasn't as blind as I thought she was._

_I knocked on the apartment door but didn't hear anything. Opening it, I stuck my head in and called out his name. Still no answer. The apartment was just how I remembered it. A small kitchen and living room area with a bathroom and bedroom behind doors to the left and right. I sat the pie down and headed to the bedroom. Sam laid there with his eyes closed._

_"I brought pie," I said from the doorway._

_He rolled over, his back to me._

_"Your father called. He's sorry he couldn't make it. He asked if you could stay for the summer."_

_He sat up a bit to glare at me. "Run along Quinn," he snapped. I felt the sting of his words and started to walk away._

_"Go ahead and leave. Everyone does," his voice softened._

_I froze, "Do you always do that? Tell people to leave and then cry when they do?"_

_"I said leave!" He snapped. I was a bit afraid he would attack me._

_"This is me. Man who can't be loved. Who is still waiting for his father that'll never come," he laid back down._

_I knew he wouldn't attack me. He was full of rage. The same kind of rage I felt toward my own father. I stood there._

_"Please go," he begged but instead I moved closer._

_"You're not the first people he's had me stay with. I lived with my grandma until she past and then an aunt. What do you want Sam? I want to be someone else!" He answered himself, rolling closer to the edge of the bed. "Do you understand that?"_

_I nod, sitting on the bed and taking his hand._

_"He cheats and lies." His voice was returning to its original tone._

_"It's okay," I squeeze his hand._

_"I'm poison. You should stay away," he pulled his hand away._

_I try not to laugh. Not because I thought it was funny but because if he was poison he wasn't the lethal kind like my father. The only thing I knew about men was that they were dangerous but if Sam was poison then maybe I was his antidote. I watched as he rolled over and thought about doing what he wanted but I also thought about doing what he needed._

_I laid down next to him. My chest touching his back. He froze but didn't move. He rolled to face me. I used my palm to wipe his eyes. "I'm not afraid of you."_

_He placed his hand on my cheek, pulling me in for a kiss. For all he failed at, Sam had mastered kissing. He was even better than Puck and Finn had been. He rolled on top of me. I thought about how wonderful it would be to spend forever kissing him, until I felt his hand on my thigh moving toward my underwear. I pushed him off and got up._

_He looked up, "I'm sorry. I…."_

_I straightened my dress, pushing the memory of his hand away with my own shaking hand. "I don't know what I was doing."_

_"What happened?" he asked, getting off the bed. I left him standing there._

_The house was quiet when I came in. Mom and Frannie were upstairs in their rooms. Dad was passed out on the couch. Everyone in their proper place but me._

* * *

_After not being able to sleep for hours, I rolled out of bed around four for some water. The feel of Sam's lips on mine, his soft hands on my cheek, the tone of his voice. It was these thoughts keeping me up that night._

_Most nights I avoided getting out of bed at all cost. Not even the bathroom attached to my room was safe. Going down to the kitchen for water should be avoided at all cost. The kitchen was safe. It was passing my parents' room that wasn't._

_When I did stray out of bed I made sure to tiptoe and didn't turn on any lights. It was safer that way. My father was less likely to wake up. Even the kitchen light was kept off._

_That night I was careless. I stood at the window looking up at the garage apartment, glass of water in one hand and the kitchen light on. It wasn't until I felt something move behind me that I realized he was there._

_"What are you looking at?" He growled in my ear. I avoided turning to look at him knowing that would make things worse. His hand went to my arm, pulling me toward him._

_"Daddy, please…" My voice was small, my body shaking._

_"Please what? Leave you alone so you can run off with some punk? So you can have another kid with some loser?" His hand tightened on my arm._

_"I'm not going anywhere," I promised. I tried prying his hand off my arm, the glass of water slipping from my grip. His free hand went to the back of my head, pulling me toward him. I could see his lips getting closer to mine._

_"We're going to have a little conversation about who is the boss of you," he whispered, his lips just an inch from mine._

_I heard someone on the stairs and I prayed that it was Frannie._

_"Russell?" My mom._

_He looked toward the door, his hands loosening enough for me rip my arm out of his grip. I push him as hard as I can causing him to slide on the broken glass. Before he can grab me again I'm out the door and running towards the wood. It isn't until I'm hidden in the trees that I realized I had wet myself._

* * *

_I sit on a stump, watching the sky for the sun to come out. My shorts smell like urine but I know I'm safe out here. The neighbors aren't up yet and I don't think my father would come looking for me. I keep thinking about the hand reaching for me. Lips getting closer to mine._

_I take out my sketchbook, the tears falling as I draw Luc's fight against the Hand. This time she wins. This time the Hand lays dying on the ground. Sticking the book back in its place, I walk home. The sun is up. It should be safe now._

_The last time I tried to tell my mother what he was doing, she looked away whispering about how we all had our crosses to bear. I stopped telling her after that._

_Sam comes down the stairs from his apartment, stopping when he sees me standing there. He looks me over, noticing my lack of shoes and wet pajamas._

_"What happened?" he ask, moving closer and placing a hand on my shoulder._

_I step back, embarrassed by my own smell. He took my hand, leading me toward the house. Pulling away, I shake my head._

_"I can't go back. He'll kill me," I step back, getting ready to run to the wood._

_"He's at work. What he do? Hit you? Tell me what happened." His voice is soft. It's hard to resist when he sounds like that._

_"He'll kill you if he knew you helped me." He takes my hand and leads me to his apartment._

_After a shower, I change into a pair of his joggers and a shirt before crawling into his bed to sleep. He sat on the edge, his hand rubbing my back._

_"About last night…" he starts._

_"I don't want to talk about it," I whispered, drifting off to sleep._

* * *

_I don't know how long I had been sleeping when I felt a hand on my cheek. I jumped at the touch._

_"I didn't mean to scare you." He sat a pile of clothes on the bed. "Your family went to the club. They're having a party. Sounds like they'll be home late."_

_"Did anyone…." I glanced at him._

_"I told them you were alright."_

_"What about my dad? Did he ask about me?" I pick up the dress he had brought me._

_He shook his head, avoiding my gaze._

_"He didn't say anything?"_

_"Why do you care?"_

_"Tell me," I plead pulling his shirt off._

_"He said he would spend some time with you later."_

_The shiver that goes through me has nothing to do with sitting there shirtless._

_"He said he didn't care if you ever come back. What do you do to make him so mad?" He avoids looking at me._

_"You think I'm doing something?" I pull on the dress._

_"He's always mad at you. Never Frannie," he points out._

_"So it's me? I cause this?"_

_"Maybe. I don't know. I just want to understand," he explains._

_"There's nothing to understand." Standing up, I pull off his joggers and head to the door._

_"Don't go," he grabs my arm._

_"I'm maybe his property but I'm not yours!" I rip my arm out of his hand and head home._

* * *

_He leaves me alone for a couple hours before coming to find me. I'm sitting in the kitchen, a bowl of cereal in front of me but I haven't taken a bite. He sits next to me._

_"You still mad?" He placed a hand near me but doesn't dare touch it. __"I'm sorry. Your dad always seems so nice. He really cares about your family."_

_I jump up, going to dump out my cereal. "When I was five he said I was getting fat and put me on Jenny Craig for the first time. When I was eight he cut my hair off after I complained about too much homework. He locked me in the closet after I said a boy was cute. He kicked me out after I got pregnant with Beth. The one time my mother tried to leave he cut off the tip of her finger."_

_I turn to look at him. His eyes are closed like he doesn't want to face what I'm saying. "You want to know why I spent the night outside?" My fingers grip the counter and I pray for strength. Shaking my head, I turn so my back is to him. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."_

_I stand there, trying not to cry. I hear Sam get up and feel his hand on mine. For once I don't pull away._


	7. Chapter 7

Cooper found me sitting outside, chain smoking from a pack of cigarettes. It was better than being inside with my sister and Puck. He sat down across from me, pulling out his own pack.

"I miss her," he took a drag on of his smoke.

"Who were you to her?" I glance at him.

"An acquaintance. We went to the same church."

"Not friends?"

"I think it grew to that. We had things in common," he shrugged.

"Like what? A weird belief in God?"

"No. Other things. I was her sponsor," he admitted.

"Of what?" I look at him like he's grown a second head.

"AA."

I shook my head, "My mother only drank wine at dinner."

"Drunk most of the time. Kept bottles hidden throughout the house or at least that's what she told me," he shrugged.

I put out my smoke and stand up, "I need a drink. I'd ask you to join me but sounds like you're in recovery."

"It was pills for me."

"How'd you end up here Cooper? I thought you were becoming an actor in California and now you're a coroner in Lima, Ohio," I ask, actually acknowledging the fact that we knew each other before I left.

"I've burned a lot of bridges in my life. I have nowhere else to go."

"Join the club," I mumble, going back inside where I find Puck and Frannie finishing making dinner.

"Did you know mom was a drunk?" I ask, leaning against the counter.

They look at each other before nodding.

"I found bottles hidden in the kitchen," Frannie explained.

"Why didn't I know she drank?" I glare at her.

"You knew," My sister gives me a knowing look and I think that maybe she's right.

I go to the fridge, pulling out a beer. It's the only way I'll get through tonight.

"Cooper was a junkie," I say as he walks back inside. I earn a glare from Puck.

"Don't be mean," he snaps.

"Did you know she was hanging out with a coroner junkie?" He still lived in Lima after all. He had to know.

He shakes his head,

"I want to know why she stopped. Can't be because she found Jesus. She always had him and look what that got her. Don't tell me it's because her and my dad did the twelve steps together because then I'll really barf." I finish off the beer and go for another. "Why didn't you tell me the first time we met? At the morgue," I turn to Cooper.

"Didn't think it was appropriate. I told Frannie and Puck at the service. After you had…."

I cut him off. "So you two were close? Did she tell you what she was going to do?"

Puck cuts me off, taking my beer from me. "Enough." His words are firm.

"No. You don't have a suicide note hanging over your head!" I hope my words cut deep for everyone standing there.

I hear a sigh from Cooper. "The day before it happened she said the deed was at the bank and that Quinn would know where the key is. She said Quinn remembers everything."

* * *

_Eventually I feel Sam's hand move off of mine. He whispers in my ear that he'll make dinner before heading off to the store. It takes a few more minutes before I head upstairs. I take a shower and do my hair and makeup. It feels like I'm getting ready for prom but without the plastic crown at the end. I'm getting something better. I'm getting Sam._

_I go to my mother's closet and pull out an old shoe box in the corner. It's where she hides grandma's locket. It's the one place my father and Frannie don't know about. 'Our secret' she told me one time. I figured I'd wear them for tonight so I'd feel like the grown up I was. Putting it around my neck, I ignore the key inside the box and put it back in place._

_Sam was almost done cooking by the time I come over. I watch him from the doorway, taking in his appearance. He's the same height as Puck but not as muscular. His lips are big but they suit him. His blond hair falls in his eyes. He's in the in between phase of life. Not a boy anymore but not yet a man._

_He looked up from the counter, watching me stand there. A small blush appeared on my cheeks. I took the first step. I made this happen._

_He took the next ten, our lips meeting._

_It was different than when I was with Puck. I wasn't drunk on wine coolers or feeling fat. Different than when I made out with Finn. He had been a boy at the time and Sam? Sam was almost a man._

_It hurt at first but he was gentle with me. He promised he would stop if I asked but l never did._

* * *

I pretended to be sleeping when Frannie came in to say goodbye. She'd be back soon anyway when dad died. Puck was at work by the time I rolled out of bed. The key was in the same shoe box in the closet as last time. The locket was gone.

My breakfast of Jack Daniel's and a cigarette is interrupted by a call from Carole. I take a shot hoping that'll calm my nerves before answering. I may have lived with her once but that didn't mean we were close.

"Burt and I would like to know if you'd come to dinner tonight. Puck's working and I know Frannie went home. I thought it might…"

I cut her off. "No thanks."

"It's your first night alone. Your mother would want to know you're being taken care of."

"Would she? She didn't seem to care about me when she was alive." I don't mention the fact that she didn't care when I was living with Carole. That's one thing that'll always hang over our heads.

"Quinn just come to dinner." She's always been a strong woman. Even at Finn's funeral I heard she was still comforting people. Did she really care about me or was this her way of making peace with how she ignored me after I moved in with Puck? "At least a drink."

"Did she talk to you?" I sunk to the floor, my legs no longer able to hold me up.

"I was her friend. I found her."

Why couldn't people just give me yes or no answers?

"What about before she died?"

I hear her sigh, "Dinners at 4. Burt will pick you up." She hangs up before I can protest.

* * *

I wake up to a horn blaring outside. I glance at the clock. Five minutes after four. How'd that happen? I'd laid down for a quick nap after I talked to Carole. Time always seemed to play funny tricks on me.

I run my fingers through my hair before slipping on my shoes and a jacket. Mumbling a hello to Burt, we sit quietly on the drive over. Even though I went to school with his son, Kurt and I were never close. Not like he was with Rachel.

Carole is all smiles when I get there. Rather they're forced or not I can't tell. Pictures of Finn stare down at me and I can't help but wonder how things would have turned out if he had never learned the truth about Beth. Would I still be this full of hate and bitterness?

I excuse myself to use the bathroom. Once there I pull out the flask I keep hidden in my purse. Another night where I'd need some liquid courage to survive.

My legs start to shake when I come back into the room. Sam. He's sitting on the couch next to Burt. His hair is a bit darker than I remember and shorter. He outgrew his boyish looks.

"Hey." He smiles sweetly when I enter.

I ignore him, lowering myself in the nearest chair before my legs can give out. I look from Carole to Burt, hoping one of them would explain but neither do.

"You didn't tell me you invited anyone else," I whisper angrily at Carole.

"I invited a friend," she shrugged.

So Sam still talked to them even after Finn's passing? That was good.

"I think I'm feeling a little…." I start to stand up.

"Drunk?" Carole guesses, heading to the kitchen.

"Sick," I correct her as I follow her.

"There's beer in the fridge." She ignores me, pulling out a meatloaf from the oven.

I ignore her. Instead heading back to the entrance for my jacket.

"Where are you going?" I don't need to turn to see who it is. I'd forever remember his voice.

"I can't do this, " I whisper, not turning around.

"I came alone," he promises. "I got Carole to do this for me. Didn't think you'd answer if I called or came over."

He was right. "Did you get my mom to kill herself so I would come back?"

"Wow. You've gotten…"

"Mean? Bitter?"

"You weren't like this …." He sighed, finally realizing just how much things had changed. The Quinn he knew was dead.

"You were the mean one back then." My hand is on the door handle. "I can't do this."

"Stay." He puts his hand on top of mine, preventing me from opening the door. We stand like that a minute ignoring Carole's calls that dinner was ready. He takes my hand and leads me to the dining room.

I sit across from him during dinner. The only sound is the clanking of silverware. I don't taste the food and wash it down with my beer. It was Carole who finally broke the silence.

"So what have you been up to Quinn?" Did she really care?

"Living in New York. Working as a waitress. Going to school to become a librarian. I love books." Lying was the easiest thing. I glance at Sam who just rolls his eyes, releasing another small burst of all that disappointment he had been brewing for ten years.

We fall back into silence for another couple minutes before Carole speaks up again. "Tell us about your child," she asks Sam.

"He's fine," He shrugged.

"How old is he?"

"Going on ten," he mumbled.

Here it was. The words not said since my return. The mention of the baby that was a boy now.

"Have you meet him yet? He's wonderful," Carole said, turning to look at me but I'm already out the dining room and almost to the door.

* * *

"Quinn stop!" I left my jacket behind and I shivered with every step but that didn't stop me from running. I could hear Sam's footsteps behind me and only stopped when I felt a hand on my wrist.

"You planned that! You asked her to mention him! Why can't you just leave me alone! I can't see him!" I try pulling away but his grip tightened.

"I'm not asking you to," he promises. "Don't you want to know if he's happy? If he asks about…"

I interrupt him before he can finish. "Does he have a mother?"

It was the one question that nagged at me every day. The one question I drove away with alcohol. Surely Sam had found a mother for him by now. Rachel or Mercedes or even Santana. One of these glee girls who would love to play mother to his kid.

"I'm not married," he let go of my wrist but I don't run off. I need an answer.

"I don't care about that. I want to know about him. Does he have a mother?"

I want the answer to be yes. That he doesn't know about me. That he has a mother that loves and cares about him. Someone that took care of him when he was sick. Held him when he was sad and read to him at bedtime. Someone that he called mom. Someone that didn't tell him anything about me expect she didn't know why his real mom left.

Sam held me in place with his eyes, our bodies just inches apart.

"You, Quinn. You're his mom."


	8. Chapter 8

**/warning: rape, incest, abuse**

_"So why does your family go to the club so much?" Sam asked as I search the room for my mother's locket. He's sitting on the bed, watching me look. The sheet across his lap barely covers him. I can feel him dripping out of me and want to get home before my family does._

_I ignore him and toss the pillows to the side. He sighs, mumbling about small talk before getting up to help me. The sheet falls to the floor and I turn away so I don't see anything. He rolls his eyes, pulling on a pair of jeans as I leave him in the room. He follows me._

_"You'll look for them right?" I ask, trying to straighten my dress._

_He walks over to me, kissing me softly and taking my hand. He places it on his crotch before I can stop him. "See what you do to me?"_

_I pulled away, going to the door. Freezing, I turn to look at him. "About half hour north of Lima my family owns a cabin. There's a couple dozen cabins but to get to ours you have to cross a bridge. My father likes the privacy. During the summer this place is full of wealthy families taking a long weekend. They're always trying to show off to each other. During the rest of the year no one goes there except my family. I've never been. He only takes my mother and sister. Only the people he loves._

_He looks at me, not understanding. I study his flaws. His lips that look like they belong on a fish. His hair covering his eyes. The pimple growing on his chin. How could I allow him to touch me like I had?_

_"He calls it the club. My father does," I explain._

_"And you've never been?" He takes a seat on his bed._

_"I'm not special enough." He's about to protest but I shake my head. "If you tell anyone what we did I'll kill you."_

_He gets off the bed, moving to me. "I promise," he whispers before kissing me for the final time._

* * *

_"All clean?"_

_My father is sitting on my bed when I came out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around me. My skin was raw from trying to scrub Sam off of me. No matter how hot the water was I can still feel him inside of me._

_"You look different." He's studying the little of my body he can see. It feels like I'm a piece of property. His property._

_"Mom!" I call, hoping she'll hear me._

_"Her and Frannie are shopping. They have a few things to pick up before the party at the country club tomorrow night."_

_I stand there waiting for him to do something. He gets off the bed, brushing his fingers through my hair. I try not to flinch knowing it'll be worse if I do. He winks at me before leaving the room. I close the door when I know it's safe to do so._

_I go to my closet and pull out my old cheerios duffel bag. I stuff as many clothes as I can in it, leaving room for my sketchbooks. The crappy ones are in the stump in the woods. The one Sam bought is in the garage. In a sock in the back of my closet is $463. I had started saving it the day I moved back in after having Beth. It wasn't much._

_I put it in a side pocket of my bag and put it back in my closet. I'd ask mom if I could go to Santana's after the party. Knowing my father he'd get drunk and pass out as soon as he got home. This was the only chance I had._

* * *

_I'm wearing the red dress I wore to Burt and Carole's wedding with a thin sweater. Sam is sitting in the kitchen when I come down. He stars at me like he's never seen me in it. Him and Puck managed to get jobs as waiters during the party. A nice way to earn a bit of extra money for the summer._

_"You're just as beautiful as last time you wore that dress," he smiles._

_I shush him, glancing at the stairs. Frannie and my parents are still getting ready. Sam and I are alone for the first time since we slept together. The memory still sends shivers down my back. My sketchbook is still in the garage. I hadn't dared go near it in case my father saw me entering._

_The only thought going through my head was my plan of escape. I would go home with Santana after the party and then sneak out in the middle of the night and buy a bus ticket out of Lima. I couldn't take my car knowing my father would report it stolen. Hopefully it would be hours before anyone realized I was gone._

_I stuffed my bag in the back of Sam's truck. I planned to grab it before riding home with Santana. I didn't have a chance to grab my book from the garage but the others rested on top of my clothes in my bag. I sat in the back of my dad's car for what I thought was the last time._

* * *

_The country club was full of the richest and most important people from the surrounding area. Doctors and lawyers. Even the mayor of the town. They were all trying to out do each other. Show off their families. Flaunt their wealth. It made me sick to the stomach to see. Puck and Sam were among the wait staff serving champagne and wine._

_I sit in the corner, watching it all. Between dancing with my mother and sister, my father downs flutes of champagne and glasses of wine. I gave up trying to count how many. He's usually good at holding his liquor but I see that he's starting to stumble._

_Sam always smiles as he passes me but I avoid looking into his eyes. Even a day later I feel his hands on me. I'm nervous to leave. It's strange I pick the only day of the year my family is acting normal to leave. I start having second thoughts as I see my mother laugh for the first time in a long time._

_My father winks at me as he heads to the bathroom. With any luck he'll stop at the bar for something stronger before coming back._

_Sam comes over, taking a seat next to me. There's an empty tray on his lap. He moves his chair closer to me, his hand brushing my side._

_"Aren't you suppose to be working?" I glance at him._

_He shrugs, "They're not going to miss me for five minutes."_

_"My father will kill you if he sees," I move my chair away from him._

_"I'll risk it." He leaned back, watching me. "You've been avoiding me."_

_I look down at the floor, not knowing what to say. Yes? No? Was admitting it better than lying?_

_"It's for the best," I whisper._

_He leans forward, taking my hand in his._

_I start to pull away but it's too late. I hear footsteps approaching._

_"Let's go." My father's words send shivers down my spine. His hand is on my wrist, pulling me to my feet and away from Sam. I look back at Sam as my father pulls me along, his fingers digging into my arm._

_He leads me to his car, shoving me inside. My head hits the top. I try not to cry out in pain. I try opening the door._

_"Open it and I'll kill you," my father warns with a slap to my face. Pulling the key out of his pocket, he starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot. "You're just like your mother. You couldn't keep your hands off of him."_

_"He didn't marry your mother and Sam isn't about to marry you." He sees me inching closer to the door and grabs my dress to pull me closer._

_"Who?" I ask but he ignores me._

_"I married her. I stayed in this godforsaken state. I could have been a big time lawyer in New York or Los Angeles."_

_He looks at me but I finally understand. It was never me he was seeing._

_He turns off the main highway and heads down a country road. I hear something moving in the back. Probably just an empty whiskey bottle. If he slowed down just enough I might be able to jump out but he starts to speed. He pulls into a group of cabins and stops at a bridge._

_We're at the club._

* * *

"Drink this," Sam instructs, handing me a cup of tea.

After hearing the words I had been running from for almost ten years, my legs gave out. I tried standing up but fell back down every time I tried. I had traveled hundreds of miles to get away from the words I didn't want to hear. I would have crawled home to get away from him but he scooped me up into his arms.

He settled me into his truck and drove me home. Neither of us said anything on the drive or as he carried me inside and sat me on the couch.

He had thought he had been saving me the last time he carried me. How wrong he was.

After making tea for both of us, he sat down next to me. A part of me wished he'd leave. Another part, a part I would never admit to, wanted him to stay. Our sides gently brushed each other. It was the first time I felt something in years.

* * *

_I tried running as soon as the car stopped but my father caught me before I could get too far. I kicked my legs out but his fingers just dug into me. He was too strong. Pulling me along, I knew there was no point in yelling for help. There was no one around. The clouds opened up. The summer rain mixed with my tears._

_"You need to grow up kid. The world isn't full of rainbows and flowers." My feet slide in the mud and I lose my balance. My head hits a rock and the world starts to spin. His foot strikes my nose. I feel blood mixing with the rain and my tears._

_"Do you know what it's like to have everything and lose it all? She was mine and he tried taking her. And now his son tried taking you."_

_He goes to the car, giving me a chance to get up. The world still spins but I try running. He moves back, shoving me to the ground._

_"You think I don't know?" The sketchbook from Sam is in his hands. He throws it across the bridge before grabbing my arm and pulling me up. My feet slide in the mud again but my father makes sure I don't fall._

_He drags me closer to the bridge before pushing me onto it. I feel his weight on top of me. I try pushing him off but fail. I hear a snap and searing pain goes through my leg. One hand holds me in place, the other is under my dress. It's inside of me but it isn't a hand. No. It wasn't a hand at all._

_He passes out a couple minutes later. I push him off and crawl off the bridge. I only stop crawling when I'm safely under a tree. My leg has swollen to twice its normal size and I know it's broken along with my nose. The back of my head is bleeding and probably needs stitches. My cheek is swollen._

_I pass out like my father. Not from alcohol but from pain._

* * *

_"Q."_

_I hear a voice calling me out of my sleep and feel someone lifting me._

_Puck._

_"What happened?" he whispers as if he's afraid his voice will hurt me even more. He carries me across the bridge to the only cabin on the other side. Opening the door, he lays me on the couch. He mumbles something about getting help and that I'm safe now. My eyes silently beg him to stay. He ignores it, heading outside instead. Maybe looking at me like this is too much for him._

_Puck carries me back across the bridge later. My pelvis ached with each footstep. Sam is waiting for us with his truck. They make a bed for me in the back with some old blankets. Both avoid looking into my eyes._


	9. Chapter 9

Sam looks down at my leg as we sit there with our tea. "Does it hurt still?"

I shrug in response. After that night my leg had been broken in three places and I wore a cast for three months. My leg still hurt when it rained or was cold but it wasn't the thing that hurt the most. I start to cry.

Setting his cup down, he picks up a pen and paper. "Address and phone number," he explains. "I won't tell him who you are." He doesn't say anything about me telling him. We both know I don't have the strength for that.

I want to tell Sam that I have not forgotten him. To tell him why. "I wish I was different. "

I lock eyes with him and he gives me a small smile.

* * *

I slept on the couch that night. It was the first time since coming back that I didn't sleep in the bathtub. My legs were working by the morning and Sam was long gone. I stick the piece of paper he had left into my jeans along with the key to the safety deposit box. It was time to leave Ohio again after a quick stop at the bank.

The bank manager offers her condolences before mentioning how my mother said I'd be coming.

"She said she was going to kill herself?" I stare her down.

"She said she was moving to New York and you'd be handling her affairs," she explains.

I don't ask anything else. I haven't had enough alcohol to deal with this but plan to hit up the liquor store before leaving town. I follow her to the back where the safety deposit boxes are. She pulls one out and sets it on a table before excusing herself.

I unlock the box and find a stack of papers in a zip lock bag just like my mom's suicide note. The first page is the deed along with a note on top. My mom's neat handwriting glares up at me.

"Quinnie,

Find Sam and asks him about this. He's here in Lima.

Mom xxxooo"

I look at the deed to see what she meant and the name Dwight Samuel Evans stares back at me. Sam's father owns my parents house.

Taking a picture of the name on the deed, I send it to Frannie before stuffing the papers back into the ziplock. She can deal with this. I'm done.

* * *

I have yet to leave town. Instead I find myself sitting outside the gas station with a case of beer and a pack of smokes like the Lima loser that I am. I may have made it out of town but that doesn't mean I'm not a loser. God and I thought this was going to be Puck's life.

I'm half way through the case of beer when I hear footsteps behind me.

"I thought you'd be long gone by now." I don't have to turn around to recognize that voice. Cooper Anderson.

"How come every time I'm trying to drown away my pain you seem to find me?" I put out my cigarette and light another.

"Lucky I guess," he sits down next to me, pulling out his own cigarette. "We need to talk."

I don't say anything. Between the smokes and the beer I'm almost numb again.

"I miss her." I can feel his eyes on me but I don't know what to say. I don't miss my mother. "You look like her. At least in old photos."

I look at him as if he's grown a second head. The same hair color yes. Maybe similar eyes but no. I don't look like her. "How do you know so much about my family?"

"We got close in the end," he shrugs.

"Did she tell you what she was going to do?" Did she reach out to anyone in the end? They said people always reach out towards the end but is that true?

"She said she was moving to New York. That she wanted to be closer to you."

Why after all these years did she want to be closer to me? It wasn't like we had been close before I left. Why now? She hadn't even known where I was. Just guessed. My stomach does a somersault and it's not from the alcohol.

"I'm adopted." He turns to look at me.

Is this supposed to mean something to me? I set down my empty bottle and pull out another one before I look at him. I study his face and sigh. "You weren't her sponsor. " It isn't a question. I see bits of my mother in him. Bits of me. He and Blaine may be brothers but not by blood.

He isn't who you think he is…..

"She's your mother." I don't need him to nod to confirm my suspension.

* * *

_I wake up in the same hospital that I had Beth in. The ward may be different but the room's the same. Same bed. Same nightstand. Same smell. All the events in my life seem to led me here._

_My body is heavy with pain. My cheek has swollen so much that it makes it hard to see out of that eye. There's stitches on the back of my head and my nose is set in a cast. My leg is in a cast going from my ankle to my thigh. My pelvis throbs._

_My own father beat the living day lights out of me._

_The door to my room opens and I look at the doctor that comes in. He had been there when I had Beth._

_"So Ms. Fabray right?" He glances from me to my chart. "What happened?"_

_"I fell." Lying has always been easy._

_He doesn't say anything but I know he doesn't believe me. After taking my vitals he leaves me alone again. I'm an adult and yet all I want to do is crawl into a ball and cry._

_I drift off, only opening my eyes again when I hear the door. My mother stands at the end of my bed._

_"Mommy…" my body shakes from tears. I haven't called her that in years. She just stands there, not coming closer. It reminds me of the day my father kicked me out after learning about Beth. My mother had just sat there and did nothing. She was weak then and she was weak now. She doesn't look at me. Can she not face what her husband did?_

_Eventually we lock eyes and I see her tears. So maybe she does feel something._

_"You have to leave Lima." She moves closer and places her hand on my arm. I feel nothing._

_"You'll die if you stay. Just like I did." She pats my arm gently before leaving._

_I never see my mother again._

* * *

_My sister visits soon after my mother. She cries the whole time and can't look at me. Why can't she look at me? Will it break the love she has for our father? Will looking at me make her realize he's not the hero she thinks he is?_

_Before she leaves she ask me not to tell anyone what he did to me._

_"What will people say?" She whispers before leaving._

_I don't see her again until after our mother dies._

* * *

_Puck carries me out of the hospital in the middle of the night about a week after that night. My father hasn't come looking for me yet but we all know it's just a matter of time. He settles me into Sam's truck. He can't manage to look me in the eyes but he gives me a hug and an envelope of money. $1356. Everything he's made so far this summer. His Star of David necklace rest next to my cross. Something to protect me he explains. I don't believe in any God anymore but I don't say that to him. I don't say anything as Sam pulls away and we leave Lima for what I hope is the last tine._

_I let Sam drive, not saying anything even when he ask me questions. I don't know where we're going nor do I care. I just want out of Lima and it's better than my plan of jumping off a bridge. He can tell there's something different about me. Anyone can see I'm dead inside._

_He finally stops outside an apartment complex in Cleveland. I glance at him and he nods towards a blond coming out of an apartment. She's tall and slender. Her skirt is short and her boots go to her knees. She looks just like she did when I first met her as a junior in high school. It's hard to believe everything that's changed since then. I hadn't realized he was still in contact with her._

_Sam gets out and pulls Holly Holiday into a hug. I watch from the truck. It's amazing how easy it is for two people to connect. The thought of someone touching me makes me want to cry. I'm broken more than just physically._

_He let's her go and they walk to the truck. She's the only one that has looked me in the eyes since that night without flinching._

_"It's nice to see you again Quinn." She helps me out of the truck and to her apartment. Sam follows us inside. She settles me onto the couch. Her place is just like I imagined it would be. Barely decorated with a few pieces of furniture from a second hand store. Nothing she'd miss if she had to move without warning. She wasn't one to get too attached to anything._

_I start to cry. The doctor said it was because of the broken nose but I know it has nothing to do with that. It's the brokenness inside._

_Holly hands me a tissue._

_"You don't have to tell me anything," she promises._

* * *

_I sleep for most of the first week I'm there. My body is still healing from the attack. Holly set me up in her guest room. Her and Sam take turns bringing me food. Neither ask how I am. They can tell just by looking at me. I'll never be alright again._

_"He left," Holly tells me one day as she helps me eat a bowl of soup._

_Honestly I'm surprised he stuck around this long. One thing I've learned is that men can't be trusted._

_She was a substitute for various schools around the city. It wasn't a stable job but it fit her. Nothing was stable in life anyway._

* * *

_Almost three__ months after arriving she took me to get my cast removed. Whenever anyone asked what happened I told them I fell. If they believed me or not I didn't care. The doctor said my leg would hurt for a while but it would be fine in time. She took my vitals and a blood sample._

_Holly takes me out for lunch after the clinic. Neither of us mention the news the doctor gave me._


	10. Chapter 10

"That day at the morgue? I wanted to tell you then but knew it wasn't the time."

Cooper's eyes are the same shape and color as my mother's. It's like she's looking at me. I want to puke. I stand up and start to pace as I smoke. Sitting next to him is too hard.

"Your father?"

"A Dwight Evans."

Just like I suspected. A brother that Sam and I shared. Did he know?

"How old are you?" I glance at him as I move.

"Thirty-five."

Three years older than Frannie. Seven older than me.

"What were you hoping to find?" A happy family? One that loved each other and cared for each other? One of these families you see on television that is always smiling and hugging? Everything her family wasn't. Everything her mother failed to give.

"I wanted to get to know her. My siblings. Didn't you want to know her?" He watches me pace.

What was there to know? That she had a child and gave him away? Why hadn't she said anything after I had Beth and gave her away? She had said nothing as I signed away my rights to my precious daughter. Hadn't acknowledged that she knew what it was like to hold your child knowing they would never be yours.

Blood didn't make people family. I had learned that a long time ago.

I finish off the case of beer and throw it away. It was time to leave Lima for the final time.

"After failing at a career in acting I went down a dark path. Burned more bridges than I could count. It was during that time that my parents gave me my adoption papers. They had my birth parents names. It wasn't hard to find her." He explained.

"Did she say if she ever looked for you?" Did her mother long for him the way she longed for Beth?

"It's hard to believe a woman who gives up a child could forget," he shrugs.

"Giving up is not forgetting."

"You sound like her," he smiles.

It feels like a punch to the stomach.

"We really did meet at church. I didn't lie about that. I didn't tell her but she knew. It was hard to forgive her. It was like she didn't understand that she was a person who made choices. Choices that affected people."

My mother didn't make choices. She let others control her. Let them decide things for her. First a man that left her pregnant with a son she didn't want. Then a man that abused her. The only choice she ever made was to kill herself.

"What did she say about me?" About the daughter that left before her husband could kill her.

"She knew Sam's son was yours. He never confirmed it but she knew."

If she knew how many others did too? The old glee club? Her former teachers? The people she once considered friends? Her father?

"She said she couldn't let you make the same mistake she had made. That you couldn't give up your son like she had. Like you did your daughter."

It started pouring rain. It felt good but it did nothing to ease my pain.

* * *

_Holly didn't ask me what I was going to do with this baby but I did find pamphlets on my bed. I knew I had options. This wasn't my first unwanted pregnancy. Abortion. Adoption. There were ways out of this._

_Even though I didn't believe in anything anymore I knew I wouldn't get rid of this baby. The thing inside me was no more a baby than I was a mother. The part of me that could have been a mother died that night._

_Holly took me to every appointment. Bought me clothes that fit. Bought things for the baby. She kept saying I would be a good mother and I didn't correct her. I went along with it. We didn't talk about Sam nor did she tell me I should call my family. They were forbidden subjects._

_I thought about the thing inside me. The one slowly taking over my body. It would be deformed. Maybe with a hunchback or lopsided eyes. Maybe brain damage. Would there be a marker letting me know who the father was?_

_I thought about that night often. How could I not? I was alive physically but inside? That night had killed me. The monster was in me now. It was never going to be over._

_When I was about eight months along Sam came back. I was laying down for a nap and could hear him talking to Holly. I laid there, not wanting to get up. Why was he here now? Why after all these months? Where had he been? Certainly not Lima. Not with my father there. Or maybe he was stupider than I had thought. He did have to finish out his senior year and I'm sure Finn or Puck would let him live with them._

_Holly comes to check on me. I close my eyes but she knows I'm still awake. She takes a seat on the edge of the bed._

_"He's going to stay awhile," she places a hand on my shoulder._

_I know she called him. What happened to her talk about freedom and choices?_

_"He's the father. He has a say."_

_If only she knew._

_I feel the warm water between my legs. It's time._

* * *

_It's different than when I had Beth. That time I had Puck and Mercedes and even my mom with me in the room. Most of glee club was in the waiting room. This time it's Holly who holds my hand. Sam tries but I won't let him near me. He sits in the corner, not sure what to do. Beth had been quick. Less than two hours after my water broke she made her appearance in the world._

_My father had killed me mentally and this thing was going to kill me physically. Holly sat on the edge of my bed, holding me in her arms. She brushed my hair back. Fed me ice and broth to keep my energy up. Whispered encouragements in to my ear._

_Once she took a cotton swab and wiped the inside of my mouth. When I asked she just shrugged and winked._

_Five hours in, she left to get some coffee. Sam moved out of the corner and sat in Holly's spot. I turn so my back is to him._

_"Quinn look at me please," he begs. "I didn't know. I called to find out how you were doing and she told me."_

_I grab his hand when I feel a contraction but don't say anything to him. They take turns sitting with me after that. I feel like this is their baby. Not mine. This had never been my baby._

* * *

_After eleven hours of labor I finally give birth to a baby boy. Sam cuts the cord and the doctor places the baby in my arms just like they had done after Beth. There's no smile from me this time. I don't look at him. Eighteen and two babies. I'm a statistic._

_The doctor had said he was healthy. Ten fingers. Ten toes. But I know the truth. He will never be healthy._

_I miss him when the nurse takes him to the nursery. I remember how warm he was when I held him. The sound he made when I moved him closer. The way he moved in my arms. The softness of his skin. How heavy he felt. His smell had been a mixture of me and the hospital._

_It is these moments that I could never drink away—no matter how hard I try._

* * *

How come during the most important moments of my life the sky always decided to open up and cleanse the world?

The rain was coming down in thick sheets after I left Cooper at the gas station making it hard to see as I left Lima for the second time in my life. Memories of the last time I left flooded my mind. The way Puck had said goodbye to me thinking it would be the last time we saw each other. The smell of Sam in the truck that day. The way both of them knew there was something different about me. Something that had died inside me. How Sam couldn't look me in the eyes after because he was afraid to see the deadness in them.

Maybe it was because I kept thinking about him that made me turn right down Franklin instead of heading straight out of town. Or maybe it was my subconscious drawing me there.

His truck was sitting in the driveway. I could see Sam through the window sitting and watching TV. For a moment I forgot I was driving and lost control of the car. I slammed on the brake, jumping the curb and landing in Sam's front yard. My head slammed against the steering wheel and the world started to go black. I said a silent prayer hoping the world would stay black forever.

* * *

_Holly brushed my hair and took pictures of me for the baby book she wanted to start for him. She said once I was out of the hospital that Sam and I could stay with her as long as we needed while we figured out what to do next. That there was no rush. I think she was more excited to have a baby around than I was. Her and Sam left me to rest while they went to the nursery._

_I took the cash out of Holly's purse. $167. Not as much as Puck had given me but that was back at her apartment. Putting on my pregnancy dress, I left the hospital before the two knew I was leaving and could stop me. I managed to hitch a ride with a truck driver heading to Pittsburgh._

_It was the first of many stops I made on the journey back to Lima._


	11. Chapter 11

"You snore," A voice says at the end of the bed. It's light. A male. Not Sam's. A child's. Looks like I didn't get my wish. I'm still alive.

I open my eyes, looking at the source of the voice. He has my shade of blond hair though he wears it like Sam did when I first met him. My eye shape and color as well. My second encounter with my son. God. I look better as a boy.

"I'm Lucien. Who are you?" He takes a seat at my feet as I close my eyes.

Lucien? The masculine form of my name. Lucy. They named him after me.

"Quinn."

I sit up and swing my legs over the side before pulling out a cigarette from my pocket. I pause. Are you supposed to smoke in front of kids? It had been forever since I've been around children and I didn't have a motherly bone in my body despite having given birth twice. I go to the window and open it before lighting my smoke. I can't keep my eyes off him.

"How old are you?" The cigarette does nothing to calm my shaking hands.

"Nine. Almost ten. You?"

"Twenty-eight. I'll be twenty-nine."

Rather he knows who I am or not I can't tell but neither of us can look away. Is finding a woman passed out in his house a common occurrence? Something that happened a couple times a month? Did Sam bring women around to meet his son? He was single and good looking and young. I don't blame him if he did.

"My dad says you hit your head after you drove onto the lawn."

So that explained the headache. Well that and the case of beer. "It was an accident."

"He says I shouldn't talk to you."

Was Sam afraid of what I'd say? Of what I'd do to him? Did he really think I'd hurt my own son? Is that why Sam didn't think he should be in here talking to me? Was I that much of a monster? Had I become my father?

"And yet here you are."

I place a hand on my stomach as I stand there. I had carried two children in my womb. Two children that I gave to stronger women than I could ever be to raise. One I knew I'd never see again. The other I hadn't thought I would see and yet here he was.

"You're weird," he says and I start to laugh. He joins in.

I put out my cigarette and pick up my purse off the nightstand. Moving closer to him, I freeze. The strawberry colored birthmark that graced my father's neck was on my son's. I feel my legs about to give out. I sit down on the bed on the opposite side. My eyes don't leave the mark on his neck.

"Quinn? Are you okay?" He frowns but thankfully doesn't move closer.

"I'm fine. I'm just weird. Remember?" I joke, using the back of my hand to wipe away my tears.

"I play piano," he says, trying to change the subject.

"I'm sure you're amazing." So he was musical like his father.

This would hold me. This encounter. I could go back to New York or Los Angeles or wherever. I could forget him again.

I hear movement from the doorway and only then do I look away from my son. Sam stands there watching us. I can't read his expression.

"How about you go pack your bag? Brittany will be here soon. She'll take you to your piano lesson and I'll pick you up."

Lucien nods, heading past his father out the door. Sam takes a step into the room, closing the door slightly.

I pull out another cigarette from my pocket before thinking twice and putting it away. Instead I stand up, moving to the other end of the room and look at the pictures on the bookcase. Anything is better than looking at Sam though I feel his eyes on me.

There's a picture of Sam as a baby being held by his mother. Next to it is one of Holly holding Lucien. Father and son lookalike as babies.

He isn't who you think he is….

"I made you soup and a sandwich. Coffee as well. Figured that would help sober you up."

I know by his tone not to argue. There's no point.

"Thank you. I'm sorry about your lawn and for talking to him."

I don't know who this person is that responded to him. It's not the me that I've been the last ten years. This person was almost nice. Calm. She reminds me of the girl I used to be before this storm started brewing. Before my father touched me for the first time. The girl that was once innocent and sweet. I want to tell him about the conversation I had with our son. About my mom's note and the papers she left. Yet a part of me doesn't. I want to stay and go. Tell him my secrets and also keep it all inside.

He doesn't say anything. Instead just turning and heading back downstairs. I turn when I hear lighter footsteps. My son's back.

"So it's just you and your dad then?" I turn to look at him. He's sitting on the bed again watching me.

"Most of the time. He has friends that come over to hang out and to babysit me. He says they used to sing together in high school. He has me call them aunts and uncles."

"Do you like that?"

It doesn't surprise me that he still talks to them. Do they know I'm the mother of his son or do they know not to ask?

"Aunt Brittany and Aunt Mercedes are nice. Rachel and Santana are a bit bossy. Uncle Puck and Uncle Kurt are cool."

Of course those would be the ones he still talked to. I'm glad he had help. That he wasn't alone.

"My mom's dead. Car accident."

My legs feel weak again as I sit down on the bed. A bit closer this time. So that's why Holly wasn't around raising him.

I'm saved from saying anything when Sam calls us down for lunch. My son looks at me before getting up and going downstairs. My emotions are telling me to leave again. I grab my purse and follow after him. The hall is filled with pictures of Lucien at various ages. Their eyes look down at me, begging me to tell him why I left.

"I got to go," I don't look at either Sam or my son as I stand in the doorway of the kitchen. I can feel my eyes start to water.

Sam gets up. He takes my hand and pulls me to the table. "One lunch. That's all I'm asking," he whispers in my ear.

My legs are too weak to protest. My son doesn't ask why I'm crying. Probably just thinks it's part of my weirdness. The soup burns as it goes down. I look at the mark on his neck.

"So where are you from? Did you know my dad growing up?"

My voice isn't strong enough to answer.

"We went to high school together. She's Mrs. Fabray's daughter." Sam answers for me.

Outside we hear a horn. Lucien gives his dad a hug goodbye and waves to me before grabbing his bag and heading out. I'm saved from seeing him because of Brittany.

We eat the rest of our lunch in silence. It's the most I've eaten in I don't know how long.

"I didn't mean to come here. I was leaving and…" I don't know what made me come.

"I told him you were sick when he asked why you were passed out," he explains. We both know it's better than the truth. That I was some drunk.

A part of me was glad my son thought I was weird. It would mean he wouldn't want to get to know me. He'd think of me as nothing more than that weird woman that got sick and crashed her car in their lawn. That is if he ever thought about me again. Another part wanted to stay and get it over with. Whatever I had been running from since he was born.

"I don't know how to start," I lock eyes with Sam.

"He thinks of Holly as his mother. She raised him for the first five years of his life. I was in and out. Too young to be his father. That is until I didn't have a choice. A deer ran out in front of her car. I couldn't keep leaving after that. It was time to grow up."

He places a hand on top of mine. I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time…alive. I want to vomit.

"It was her idea to name him after you. She wanted him to have a connection to you. She said you'd come back."

He moves his hand off of mine and stands up. I sit there watching him.

"This is hard Q. Part of me wants to tell you to get the fuck out and go to hell. We looked for you forever."

I don't ask what the other part wants to do. Anger I could understand. It made sense. He tosses a towel at me. I barely catch it.

"You dry." He puts the dishes in the sink. "One night. You'll go with me to pick him up and we'll have dinner. You can decide what to tell him. He knows he has a birth mother and that she left."

I don't argue as I go to the sink.

* * *

"He's so…" I didn't know the right words.

"Happy? Yeah."

I nod in agreement.

We sit in Sam's truck outside Lucien's piano lesson. Music pours out of the building. He was amazing. The papers from my mom sit on my lap. I showed Sam the deed. His father had told him about it a long time ago and about how my mother had been in love with him.

"Cooper's her son," he states. It isn't a question. "I see her in him. I see my father too.

"She was still in love with him after all this time. I think that's why she did it."

"I think knowing her grandson didn't have a mother played more of a part."

I shrug, not wanting to admit he's right. "I guess we'll never know."

* * *

I watch the two prepare dinner together. They move around the kitchen so easily. Never bumping the other. I can tell they've done this hundreds of times. I'm surprised about how easy it is to be so close to them without the desire to run overtaking me.

"So you knew my dad as a teenager?" Lucien ask as he clears the table after dinner.

I nod, not sure what to say. How much had Sam told him about his past? I know he mentioned the glee club but did he know his father lived with me?

Sam sees how uncomfortable I am and sends Lucien upstairs to do homework.

"Just one more question please?"

Sam looks at me and I nod.

"Did you really live in New York? Aunt Rachel and Uncle Kurt both live there. They say it's where all the artists live."

Of course they would tell my kid that.

"I did," I nod. Now? I had no idea where I was going to get lost in. I thought about the boxes in my car, the failed attempt at college and my drinking problem. I wasn't this wonderful person he was picturing in his head.

He nods, happy with that answer and ran upstairs to finish his homework. I start helping Sam wash the dishes. Our hands touch when he hands me a plate to dry. It feels nice.

"Do you wish you would have stayed?" He watches me out of the corner of his eye.

My first thought is no. I wasn't about to raise that freak of nature but it was clear he wasn't a freak. Even if he had been did that make him any less deserving of love?

"I don't know." It was a safer answer than what I was thinking.

"Was motherhood really that scary?"

I wasn't ready for this. Is that really what everyone thought? That I was some weak little girl who couldn't keep her legs closed and couldn't handle being a mother? I rather they think that though than know the truth. That I would have stayed if I had known Sam was the father.

A plate slips out of my hand, crashing on the floor. Sam looks from the glass to the tears in my eyes. He takes my hand and leads me to a chair. He knows he's pushed me too much today.

I only move again when I hear someone upstairs calling me to come look at their room. I wipe at my eyes before following the voice. I follow it to an open door at the end of the hall. Lucien smiles at me from his desk.

Every square inch of his walls are covered in sheets of paper. There are drawings on them with dialogue and actions. How is this possible?

"My dad said a friend of his did these. He had their books in the attic." He explains, holding up one of the books I had put in my duffel bag before tossing it in the back of Sam's truck the day my life went to hell.

"I liked them so I decided to make my own stories for Luc."

I go to one of the drawings on the wall. It isn't one of mine. It's his. There's something different about his drawings. A strength in her eyes that mine lacked. He was drawing my story. Making it up as he went along. I take a seat on his bed.

"Are these yours? They look like you and you're an old friend of my dad's."

I simply nod, my eyes never leaving the drawings on the wall. I want to read his stories for Luc. I want to be strong like his version of me was.

Before I have a chance Sam knocks on the door, sticking his head in.

"Your sister called. Your father is awake."


	12. Chapter 12

My shoes hit the pavement as I flee from Sam's house. This time I'm running with nothing. No car. No purse. No money. The air feels good in my lungs. It numbs me. Today had made me feel alive and that had been a mistake. It was better to feel dead inside. Life was less likely to hurt that way.

I didn't know where I was going or how I'd get there. I just needed to get away. From Lima. A town that never felt like home. A town full of people that just stood back and watched my life fall apart. From my son and his drawings. So like mine but filled with a strength I never had. From my sister's voice telling me that our father was awake and that he wanted to see me.

I kept running because that was the one thing I was good at. I wasn't living life. I was avoiding it. Avoiding everything that could hurt me.

I didn't want to see Russell Fabray. What would be worse? If he was sorry for what he did or if he wasn't? Frannie said the doctor didn't believe he'd last the night. This would be my last chance to see him.

Footsteps were approaching from behind me and I could hear people calling my name. I glance in their direction. Lucien stood in the front yard, begging me to come back. Sam was chancing after me, yelling my name. I stumble over my feet, scraping my knees on the ground. I try getting up but it's too late. Sam has my shirt balled in his fist, swearing as he tries to catch his breath.

"You can't run forever Q," he helps me to my feet.

"How do you know I can't? I've done it for ten years now." I know it's pointless to try to pull away from him. He's stronger than me in more ways than one.

"I don't know what you want from me Sam. To say sorry? Fine. I'm sorry. You want me to be in his life? To be his mother? I can't. It's too late for that. You want me to stop running? I can't do that either. Everything reminds me of that night. Every day for the last ten years I think of his hands. His hands reaching into me. He took parts of me he had no right to. He broke me."

Sam let's go of me and my legs give out. I fall onto all fours at the side of the road.

"No Quinn. You did that." He sits on the curb near me.

"Does thinking I did this to myself make you feel better?" I move onto the curb next to him.

"It isn't about what makes me feel better."

"You expect me to believe that? Was it easier to step in and raise him after Holly died because you knew you'd always be more responsible than me? It must be great to have me to measure yourself against. I'm the fuck up and you're the hero."

"Is this how you justify your life? Your choices? You blame everyone else for how your life turned out."

"Like you're any better. You took advantage of me. Of Holly. You left. You're like my father. You're a destroyer too. Does it matter if you came back? That you did the right thing in the end? You made the mess. I didn't."

"Playing the victim card now? You're a drunk with no life. No friends. No connections not even to your son. You did that. Not your father. You're a destroyer like him."

I look at the sky but there's not a cloud in sight. For once my life is falling apart without rain.

Sam is right. If my father had been beaten everyday as a child it wouldn't have excused what he had done. My mother's loneliness didn't excuse her taking her own life. And rape didn't excuse abandoning that baby.

He pulled me toward him, wrapping his arms around me. We sit like this for I don't know how long. Eventually he lets me go. He stands up and pulls my keys out of his pocket before tossing them onto my lap.

"You want to go? Then go. Just do one thing for me. This time you get gone." He leaves me sitting there.

I think of my son's drawings of Luc. The strength she had in his that mine lack. She was so determined to win her fight against the Hand. He knew her better than I did.

I think of Holly holding him as a baby. Of her holding him when he cried. Making sure he had everything he needed in life. Making sure he was loved even when his birth parents weren't there.

Lucien had watched his father chase his mother down the street. He didn't know that was what he witnessed but he'd know it one day. How did this end? With his father not being able to make his mother stay? With them not being enough for her?

And who would know my story? Who would tell him the truth?

The shame I felt now could never compare to the shame my father caused. This was worse. The painful truth was that it didn't matter who he's father was. Sam or my father. Because I would always be his mother.

I picked up the keys and went back to Sam's. The door was slightly ajar as if he knew I'd come back. I find him sitting in the living room.

"Carole's on her way over to watch Lucien. We'll go together."

He had more faith in me than I thought he did.

* * *

The hospital looks just like it did ten years ago after my fall. The same as when I had Beth my sophomore year. Nothing ever seems to change in this town. Not even the hospital.

I follow behind Sam. My pelvis starts to ache just like it had that night. It's like my body was remembering what he had done to it. Like it's warning me to run but I know that's not an option.

Sam glances at me. For once there's no pity in his eyes. I guess agreeing to see my father earned me a small bit of respect.

"This won't change anything," I point out.

"Do you want it to?"

Did I? Anything had to be better than the life I was living but would seeing my father make things better? It certainly couldn't make things worse.

"I need a drink."

"You and me both Q." He smiles at me.

"What if my father isn't done with me?"

"You said he broke you that night. You need to find out if that's true."

* * *

I don't recognize the man sitting on my father's bed. He's skinnier than last time I saw him and his hairs a bit longer with grey streaks. There's anger in his eyes wrapped up with hatred. It's my father and yet it isn't.

Had my mother told him what she was going to do while he had been laying in a coma? Had she mentioned anything before that? Did he care?

"Dad." I move to the edge of his bed. Our eyes lock. I can't look away.

"You're too thin."

I always been too fat to him and now I'm too thin. He'll never be happy with my weight.

"What do you want?" I take a step back.

"Our daughter," he said.

"We don't have a daughter."

Did he know about Lucien? Is that who he was talking about?

"We have two."

"Dad, it's Quinn."

"He's never going to be with you."

I move so he can see me better.

"I'm Quinn."

His eyes close. I look at Sam. This was pointless. How could he be asking for me when he didn't know who I was? I feel his eyes on me so I look down

"You look old. Kind of ugly."

"You look like you're going to die."

"Good."

I look away, my eyes landing on a picture on his night stand. It's from my kindergarten graduation. I'm wearing a white graduation gown. Frannie had put my hair in pigtails. She's standing next to me. My mother is next to her, arms wrapped around her waist. My father's next to me. His hand is on my shoulder. We're all smiling at the camera. I place the picture face down.

He glances at the door, spotting Sam.

"You're still with him?" His eyes are on me again. "You and your mother will never learn. I tried teaching you."

"How'd you do that?"

"I never laid a hand on you. If it weren't for me your mother would have ended up in a home. Fucking disgrace. She's lucky I forgave her."

"You treated her like shit. What did you forgive her for? Getting pregnant or not loving you?"

He grabs my wrist, his fingers digging in.

"What did you do with his baby?"

I try pulling away but he's too strong even in his weakened state.

"You give away that mistake too like you did your first one? Did you give it to the same family or a different one? How many more do you have? Or did you finally learn to keep your legs closed?"

"Let go." I feel a rage in me. A good rage. The same rage that made me fight back and get away from him a couple times as a teenager. The same rage that helped me crawl away that night ten years ago. I glare down at him and then see his birthmark. The same one on my son's neck.

"Your mother is a whore and so are you. I had her first, just like…"

His monitor goes off and he gasped for air. His grip loosens enough for me to pull away. A nurse rushes in followed by a doctor.

"Like what? Say it." I lean down, yelling in his face.

I don't care who was in the room. The doctor. The nurse. Sam. I want him to admit it. To tell the world what he had done. I didn't want to be the only one who knew the truth.

Sam grabs my arm, pulling me out of the room as I keep yelling at my father to say it.

"He isn't who you think he is!" I shout.


	13. Chapter 13

I call my sister and tell her that if she wants to say goodbye she better get there soon. She's the only person in this world that my father likes after all. He had used the last bit of energy to spew one final round of hate my way.

Frannie doesn't understand what happened. She just stands there looking at me. Willard holds her close. "He just wanted you," she keeps whispering.

They list the official cause of death as a second stroke.

Sam drives me back to my parents' house. I don't say anything. I know he wants me to feel better. That he thinks the evil spell that once held me is broken with the death of my father but it isn't. I feel worse. His death didn't kill the monster inside me.

* * *

Puck is waiting for me when I get home. He's still in his uniform. His patrol car is in the driveway. I don't ask if he's on duty. It wouldn't matter if he was. It's not like a lot of crime happens in Lima.

He has a cup of coffee on the table waiting for me. The need to drink is still there but I've found that I don't need to do it to get through everything in my life. At least for now.

"I thought you'd be gone by now Q." He looks at me over the rim of his cup.

"I tried but here I am."

It was like something was holding me here. Or someone.

I pull the picture from my father's room out of my pocket and hand it to him. On the back my father had written 'my family'. He had drawn a heart around my head on the back as well.

Getting up, I go to the fridge and pull out the last bottle of beer. One bottle couldn't hurt.

"He's dead," I say as if saying it out loud truly confirms it.

We sit in silence. Puck drinking his coffee and me cradling my beer. What if my parents deaths made things worse not better? Now all that was left was the past bearing down on all of us.

"Do you feel better now that he's gone?" He has the same look he had that night at the hotel. Like he's fighting back tears and silently begging me for forgiveness.

"Nothing will ever help. You know that."

We were back where our story had ended seven years ago.

* * *

_Beth was five that day. As much as I tried to forget her that was one thing that I never could. How old she would be every year. What she felt like to hold in my arms. Her smell. The way her eyes had looked into mine. Those were things I'd never forget. She was one of the things I could never drink away. Her and her brother._

_It was fitting that that would be the day that Puck managed to track me down in a hotel in New Jersey. He had managed to find out what restaurant I was working at and my boss told him where I'd be._

_His mohawk was gone along with the hatred he once had for the world. Instead in it's place was a mature young man. A man that was so different than the little boy I had had a child with._

_After the binge I was coming off it took me a moment to recognize him. My mind always associated him with Lima. To see him at my hotel door in New Jersey tied my stomach up in knots._

_It was raining like every defining day in my life. He was on his way to see Kurt and Rachel in New York._

_I had settled into a pattern at this point. Work at some rundown restaurant, drink away whatever money I made and then move on after the manager fired me for either showing up drunk or not showing up at all. I wasn't hoping for salvation. I knew that would never come. I was looking for a peace that never would happen. Some jobs lasted longer than others. Some paid more. Some people tried to help but everything always ended the same way. With me trying to numb the pain and failing._

_"I have to tell you something." He moved to the bed to sit but thought better of it. Instead he turned to look at me._

_Puck had always made me feel safe. We shared more than a daughter. We shared a love for each other. Not a romantic one. More like a sibling one. He was one of the few men in my life who had made up for the wrong he had done to me._

_"I was there that night. I saw your father leading you out of the party. He looked so mad. I hid in the back of his car."_

_I shake my head, going to a case of beer in the corner but finding it empty. No. I hid from anything that took me back to that night. The kind of car my father drove. Parties. Red clothing. Men. Cabins. Hope. Love. Sex. My leg started to ache._

_"I don't want to talk about this," I said._

_"I was there the whole time."_

_He's next to me now, his voice shaking. His closeness pinned me to that spot._

_"It was storming. I couldn't hear what your father was saying over the rain but I could tell it wasn't good. That something was going to happen."_

_"Shut up." I walk to the window, looking at the cars below. I remember hearing something moving in the back of the car that night._

_"I wanted to help you. To protect you. That's why I went but I saw how angry he was. I…"_

_"Enough," I say but my voice is too soft._

_"He was hitting you and yelling and you were trying to get away…"_

_I run at him, using all my strength to push him. He's stronger than me but he wasn't expecting this. My knees hold him in place as my fists hit him. "Stop!" I yell as I keep hitting him but it's too late. I'm back on the bridge and my father is on me. And now? Now there was more to know about that night._

_"I wanted to help you Q. To save you but I…. I play it over and over in my mind trying to figure out why I froze. I think I was afraid. Afraid he'd kill me too."_

_I climb off him, laying my head in the carpet and wailed. He reached for me._

_"Don't touch me," I crawl away from his hand._

_"I'm sorry."_

_I had learned there was always more to feel. When you get to what you think is the bottom everything opens up and you keep falling. The list of ways a person can hurt you was endless. There was only one thing worse than being hurt and that was the denial of it. I didn't have someone that saved me. A father willing to protect me. A nurturing mother. A sister that adored me. All I had was my rage._

_"What's worse? Watching or doing?" I lean against the wall, my eyes pinning him in place._

_"I was eighteen Quinn."_

_"So was I," I pointed out. "Did you see everything?"_

_"I saw him push you and tear your clothes."_

_He was uncomfortable. He wasn't about to say if he had seen it all and I wasn't about to make him. He had to have known. He had found me without underwear and with bruises in that area. He had carried me and felt how my pelvis throbbed. And what about Sam? Had they speculated?_

_I would never know because I would never ask. I had more to protect than just my pride. I had to protect my baby. Who would love him if they knew the truth? Who could love a freak of nature?_

_I don't know how long we stay like that before he finally leaves me there. Neither of us mention that it's our daughter's birthday. Happy birthday Beth._

_I go to a liquor store and restock my supply. A week later I end up in the hospital from alcohol poisoning. I fail yet again at ending my pain._

_I don't see him again until my mother's suicide._

* * *

"I should have stopped him," Puck says as we sit at the table after my father's death.

I move to the cupboard and pretend to be looking for something. Anything is easier than sitting there with him.

"Help me please," he begs.

I turn to look at him. I wonder if Beth looks like him. She'd be twelve now. Did she have his eyes? Mine? Whose hair? Whose lips? Height? Arms? Build? Did she have that birthmark that haunted my dreams? Would she ever know me? Know how much I loved her? Know how much I wanted to keep her but couldn't? Not just because I was young but also because of who my parents were. I didn't know how to be a mother. Not for her. Not for her brother. Not then and not now. Did she know she was better off without me in her life?

"Don't you need forgiveness?" he asked.

Did I? Would forgiveness really set me free like people liked to say? Or was that just a myth weak people said?

"I would have stopped him if I could."

He laid his head on the table and started crying. He appeared younger in his sorrow. More like the young man that I had a daughter with. I felt something stirring inside me. I move closer and take his hand in mine.

He isn't who you think he is….

"I know." I squeeze his hand and meant it. The truth was that he couldn't have stopped my father. No one could.

He's surprised by my kindness and so am I. I had been positive the loving part of me had died that night. I lived on one side of the hard line and everyone else lived on the other. Except my son who walked that line.

* * *

My sister, Puck, and I were the only ones to attend my father's funeral.

I watched his casket being lowered and felt nothing for him. Not forgiveness or hate or happiness or even rage. I was numb again.

I wondered if Puck and Frannie and I would have been friends if we had been strangers. If blood and sadness and pain didn't connect us in some way. Would we have liked each other if things had been different?


	14. Chapter 14

My sister wasn't her usual talkative self as we drove home from our father's funeral. Willard told me she had suffered from another miscarriage just a few days ago. It was her fourth since they got married. I couldn't imagine wanting a baby that badly. Maybe if I had been someone else I would. Maybe if I hadn't been broken at the age of eighteen.

I take her hand as we get out of the car, giving it a gentle squeeze as we walk up the stairs.

She looks at me, not sure what I'm doing.

"I can't remember the last time you comforted me. Actually I don't think you've ever have."

She lets go of my hand and doesn't turn to see if her words had stung me as she walks inside. She's right. I've never comforted her before but then again she's never comforted me before either. Not after I had Beth. Not after any of the times she saw our father hit me. We were never close as sisters. Why start now?

Sam pulls up a couple minutes later. Our son isn't with him. I'm guessing Carole is watching him. At least he has her in his life. An almost grandmother is better than no grandmother at all. Just like an almost mother is better than no mother at all.

He sits on the step and pats the spot next to him. I sit, our legs barely touching.

"How are you doing?" He looks into my eyes and I can tell he actually cares.

"The same."

"As what?"

"As before. No regrets. Not when it comes to my father. I have a boatload about you and Lucien."

"I like the way you say his name," he nudged me.

I don't want to say that it's hard to call him my son. Even harder to call him our son or his son. Not with the truth eating away at what's left of my heart.

I'm saved from saying anything with the arrival of Cooper. He parks behind Sam's truck and makes his way to us. Now that I know the truth I see bits and pieces of both Sam, Frannie, and I in his features. I had promised him I'd tell Frannie the truth.

Sam and Cooper shake hands. Even though they knew each other already this was the first time they acknowledged their biological connection.

The two head inside leaving me to my thoughts.

I think about the people inside. My sister and brother-in-law wanting so badly for a child and failing. The father of my daughter who was always there for me whenever I needed him expect that night. The night no one could save me from. The man I prayed to whatever God was above was the biological father of my son and could love him even if he wasn't. The man that proved my mother was more like me than she ever admitted.

I think about the two children my body produced. The one I was too young to raise. The one I would most likely never see again. I may have given birth to her but I would never be her mother. And then there was my son. The one that was longing for a mother in his life. The one that deserved to be loved no matter what. It wasn't his fault how he was born. I could be in his life if I wanted to be and yet I knew I couldn't be. Not with how broken I still was.

What made all these people my family? Not a common experience. We all had a different story even though many of them contained the same characters. The villain in mine was the hero in Frannie's. Not DNA. Not all of us were blood related. Did we ever have a bond and if so when was the last time I felt it?

The last time I felt I bond with my parents was when they walked me to school the first day of kindergarten. They held my hand, squeezing it when they felt I was getting nervous. Frannie had given me a hug before running off to join her friends. It was the last good day I could remember. The last day we were truly a family.

In just a few years I was scared of so many things. The dark. Storms. My father. I remember one night when I was nine I was shaking in my bed. My parents wouldn't allow me to have a nightlight anymore saying I was too old. It was raining outside and I was afraid I wouldn't hear my father if he came in. My sister heard me crying and carried me into her room. She held me close, protecting me from the world.

At eighteen Puck carried me to safety. My body seared with pain. I reached for his face, wanting to make sure it was really him and not my father coming back for more. His cheek was wet. He was crying and saying how sorry he was. He made me hold on even though I didn't want to. He kept whispering it would be alright. He held on when I didn't want to.

Not even nine months later the doctors placed a baby in my arms as Sam and Holly watched. He burned my cold arms. He was so full of life. Unlike me who was dying inside. He looked up at me and I couldn't look away. He hadn't asked to be born and yet here he was. "Hello," I whispered, kissing his forehead. I hoped he didn't know that I was really saying goodbye.

* * *

A half dozen cigarettes later I finally have the strength to go inside and tell Frannie the truth. The woman she loved, but not as much as she loved our father, was more flawed than we all thought. She may have put on a brave face for the world but the truth was she was only human and no human was perfect.

Lucien was asleep by the time Sam and I arrived at their house. My car was packed. I knew it was time to go. I didn't belong in Lima. I didn't belong anywhere.

"Stay the night. You can leave in the morning," he pointed out.

I was so tired I could have slept anywhere. I had left Frannie and Cooper at my parents` house to get to know each other. No one had come to pay their respects for my father. None of his business associates. None of his clients. Not even the old glee club.

Cooper was what you got when mixed our DNA but possibly so was Lucien.

I had also finally told the truth about my connection to Sam's son. I think Puck always knew and Cooper had suspected but Frannie had no idea.

"I think it's funny that the only thing you turned out to be good at is getting pregnant," Frannie tells me later on in the kitchen.

It was nice to see that her spunk had returned. I knew that knowing her life was better than mine always made her feel better about herself. She wasn't a good sister and I had a feeling she wouldn't be a good mother either.

"And drinking. I'm an expert at that," I point out, taking a seat at the table.

"What was it like to give birth?"

She sits across from me and I can tell she really wants to know so I tell her the stories about my children and what it was like to die inside.

* * *

I sit on the couch and watch Sam close up his house for the night. He looks so sure in his life and I think about how lucky Lucien is to have someone like him for a father.

"I have something for you." He pulls a bag out of the coffee table and sets it down on my lap.

I know it's my mother's locket. The one I had lost that night we had been together. Pulling it out, I hold it in my hand. It's almost like having her here with me.

I had ran for ten years and yet I was back where I had started. In that garage apartment with Sam. I set the locket down and followed him upstairs. We don't say anything as we undress and get into bed. We met each other in the middle as if no time has passed.

Once we are done, I roll away from Sam with my back to him. It's just my fourth time with a man and my first time since that night.

My body always seemed to betray me. When beaten it healed . When touched it responded without considering the consequences. And when raped I feared it had produced life. My body failed at protecting me.

"It still hurts," I whisper to Sam.

He rolled closer to me, wrapping me in his arms as if the simple gesture could protect me.

He isn't who you think he is….

* * *

The sun has yet to raise when I slip out of Sam's. I ignore the shadow I think I see as I get into my car. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me or maybe it's trying to protect me from the one place I know I need to go to before leaving Ohio for the last time.

I'm the only one on the road as my car carries me down the same road my father took that night. I could drive to the cabin with my eyes closed. With the locket around my neck and the feeling of Sam inside of me I know I'm protected.

Everything looks the same as I pull up. Same cabins. Same bridge. I don't know what I'm expecting from coming here. A part of me was hoping to find my sketchbook even though deep down I knew it was long gone. If I was going to tell Lucien who I was, I needed him to see the good in me.

I watch myself from outside my body, just like I had that night. I see myself carefully approach the bridge and start to cross. I look over the edge, hoping to see some sign of the sketchbook but it's long gone. I'm on the other side on my hands and knees looking over the edge when I hear it. Someone calling my name. Lucien. On the bridge.

Getting up, I look at him, not sure what he needs from me.

"Help. I'm afraid of heights," he admits, holding the side tightly in his hand.

"Just look at me. Don't move."

We lock eyes as I move onto the bridge. His legs are shaking and I'm afraid he's going to fall if he takes a step. His arms wrap around me once I get to him.

Is this what I could have been experiencing the last nine years? Arms around me warming my frozen heart? Someone thinking only the best about me?

Now isn't the time to be thinking about that. I lead him back across the bridge. We stand there in front of my car. His arms tighten around me, his face burying into my shirt. I feel his tears. I pat his back, whispering that it's alright just like Sam did last night.

"I don't want you to go," he whispers.

It would be so easy to tell him I wasn't going anywhere but there had already been so many lies between us.

"You hid in my car didn't you?"

He nods. "You're leaving." It isn't a question.

"Just for a little while."

I leave the maybe unspoken. I lead him to my car. He sits in the front seat, his body turned toward me. We sit in silence for I don't know how long. His lip is turned down a bit just like mine used to when there was something I wanted to say but knew I shouldn't.

"I'm your mother," I finally say breaking the silence.

He doesn't say anything and I don't know if that makes this harder or better.

"Something bad happened to me here. That's why I left."

"Was it me?" he finally asked.

After running for all this time I finally knew the answer to that question.

"No. It had nothing to do with you." I let the tears fall freely from my eyes.

He takes my hand, giving it a squeeze like his father used to. I look at his birthmark and for the first time it doesn't make me sick.

"I miss Holly," he admits.

"Me too."


	15. Chapter 15

It's my son's twelfth birthday today. I'm standing outside his school, waiting for him to come out. I have been sober for one year, six months, ten days and fifteen hours. My bones aren't sticking out like before. My body won't break in a hug. I keep a bag of Hershey's kisses in my purse to help with the craving. My mother's note is also in there. Her message to me from beyond the grave.

He isn't who you think he is….

One thing about being sober is the feeling of being uncomfortable every where you go. It's one feeling that'll never go away no matter what.

I've been gone for eleven years.

I knew I'd leave Lima and my son. What I didn't know is if I'd ever return. Sam had been right. If I was to leave I needed to get gone and if I stayed? I didn't know how to do that.

* * *

Lucien and I sat in the car for hours that day and talked about his life. He said he missed me despite not knowing me.

"Is that stupid?" His eyes never left me.

"No." Who was I to judge how he felt?

I took him to breakfast and we discovered how we both loved blueberry pancakes and bacon. My body began to ache. I wanted to drink more than I wanted to be in his life.

I called Sam while I was in the bathroom pretending to go and asked him to come get us. I don't tell him he's only taking Lucien until he arrives.

He doesn't act surprised, knowing all along that was how it'd go. Disappointment settles into the pit of my stomach. A part of me hoped he'd fight for me to stay. The other part knew that was foolish. Lucien wasn't as understanding and wanted to know why I was leaving.

"I'm not a good person," I try to explain as I watch tears appear in his eyes.

"But you're my mother," he points out to me.

I didn't understand that to him if I wasn't then neither was he. Explaining to him that I was positive he had more of Sam in him than me and more of me than my father was pointless.

"That's not true. She means she's sick. She needs to get better," Sam explains.

Lucien looks at me as if I was about to fall over died.

"I haven't been myself for a very long time." I use my sleeve to wipe away his tears.

They both let me go in the end though Lucien makes me promise to come back when I'm better.

"There's worse things than leaving," Sam points out as he walks me to my car. The only thing I can think of is coming back.

Lucien stands by his father's side and watches me leave for the second time in his young life.

* * *

I drive through the night and end up at Holly's old apartment. A neighbor tells me where she's buried. I tell Holly everything that day. I barely have a voice in the end. It's the first time I say out loud what happened to me that night. It's something that I can only say to the person who mothered my child. I need her to understand the reason for my actions. I whisper a 'thank you' before I leave. It feels like a boulder has been lifted from my shoulders.

I reward myself by checking into a hotel with a couple cases of beer and a pizza. My purse still contains my mother's papers. There is still more questions that need to be answered. The only thing left to run from was myself and I was nothing.

I lose track of how many bottles I drink and end up waking up in the hospital.

"You're awake," a familiar voice says.

Opening my eyes, I take in the sight of Lauren Zizes sitting in the chair next to my bed. It's almost like no time has passed except for the fact that she's wearing scrubs.

My throat burns from having my stomach pumped. I don't know how long I've been asleep or how I got to the hospital.

"Do you know who you are?" she ask as she helps me sip a cup of water.

The sun shines into the room casting everything in a yellow haze. The air is a mix of bleach and bacon being fried for breakfast. I'm too alive to be dead.

"Do you know who you are?" Lauren ask again, setting the cup down.

I try to think of an answer to her question. I'm alone. I'm Quinn Fabray. I'm dead inside,. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a daughter who was raped by her father. I'm a sister and a half sister. I'm my mother's daughter. I'm a woman. I'm broken. I'm an ex-glee member. I'm a person who had dreams for a better life. I'm lost. I scroll through the list, trying to decide what one fit me best.

I start to cry and she takes my hand.

"I'm a mother."

* * *

Lauren helps me find a sketchbook like the one Sam had given me all those years ago. I start to draw again as I go through therapy. I continue Luc's adventures from where I thought they had ended. On the ground near my father's cabin. Her enemy isn't the Hand anymore. It's replaced with Barley.

It's a struggle to stay clean. One I fail at a lot during the first few months. I stay with Lauren in her apartment. She makes sure that I eat and go to meetings. She's still in contact with some former glee members. They stop by to check on me when she's at work but none of them stay long. I fill the sketchbook with images of Luc and slowly draw myself back to life.

Lauren let's me stay with her until I know where I'm going next. I tell her I might never know but she doesn't believe that. I write Sam a letter though I suspect she's already told him where I was. It's easier than a phone call and more personal than a text. I let him know I'm alright and thank him for raising my son.

I write a letter to Beth and send it to Rachel. She tells me she'll give it to Shelby. She can't promise that Shelby will actually give it to Beth and if she does that's up to her on when. I'm ok with that. Beth will never be mine. I may have given birth to her but I'm not her mother. That honor goes to Shelby. I put the Star of David necklace that Puck gave me into the envelope so that she'll have a part of her parents with her.

Lauren and I visit Holly's grave when I reach three months sober. I tell her what happened as we stand in front of the headstone. She doesn't judge me as she listens. Just lets me get it off my chest and gives me a hug afterwards. I'm slowly unthawing inside.

She helps me get a job at the hospital café and I finish out my last semester of college. This time I pass my classes. I save up enough money to return to Lima. I buy another sketchbook and she helps me wrap it. I put it in my duffel bag along with the few clothes that actually still fit.

My mother's documents are still in my purse. Someone at my meeting had told me I wasn't looking for the answer to my problems but the courage to face them. I think they're right. My mother's note sits on top.

He isn't who you think he is….

I still don't know who she meant. Sam. My father. Puck. Cooper. But I believe she meant my son. She was right. He's so much more.

Dumping the papers onto my bed, I sort through them. Her social security card. Birth certificates for her, my father and I. Baby photos of her three children. At the bottom is an envelope from Holly. It's addressed to me. Another letter to me from beyond the grave. I guess she had faith that I'd go back one day.

I open it and read the familiar handwriting.

"Q,

I know you need to know this in order to achieve some happiness in your life. I knew you'd end up home eventually.

I love you,

Holly Holiday"

Looking at the papers, I smile to myself and think about how she had swabbed my mouth the day I had Lucien. She did a paternity test.

I find Sam's name on the page and sigh in relief when it says there's a 99.99 percent chance that he's the father of Lucien Samuel Evans.

A picture falls into my lap. It's the one Holly took the day I had my son. I look so young and I start to cry.

I get up early to avoid saying goodbye. I've never been good with goodbyes. Lauren is waiting on the couch anyway. She knew me better than I knew myself. She hugs me before walking me to my car and it's then that I realize I never asked her what her life has been like since leaving Lima. The only thing I know is that she's a nurse in the emergency department.

She must sense that I finally want to know.

"He's in prison and the baby is in a better place," she says before closing the car door.

* * *

The first stop I make in Lima is to see Puck. I find him sitting behind his desk at work. I'm not surprised he went into law enforcement. Between Beth and what he saw that night he grew up.

He smiles at me as I enter his office, closing the door behind me.

"You look different," he comments, getting up to give me a hug.

"I'm fatter," I point out but he shakes his head.

"Not that," he sits back down. "I never thought you'd come back to Lima."

He cancels his meetings that day and we stay in his office for hours. I show him the papers and we discuss the past. He says he still talks to Sam, Frannie and Cooper. Even spends time with my son. He shows me a picture Rachel sent of Beth. It's hard to talk about her but I don't feel my heart breaking like it once did at the mention of her name. He tells me he's getting a divorce but never mentions his wife's name. In the end it doesn't matter who he had married.

"You ever feel like you're running and you're not sure if it's away from something or toward it?" He ask.

"There is always something to run away from. If you keep looking back you can't see what you might be heading toward." It's something I had learned in one of my meetings.

"Something good?"

"I think we get to decide that for ourselves."

* * *

Frannie had moved into our parents' old house as her and Willard prepared for the arrival of their daughter. After talking to Cooper and realizing how many young girls were having babies that needed a loving home they decided to adopt. They also decided that the city was no place to raise a child.

Sam's father had agreed to sign over the house to Frannie. I heard it was an awkward meeting when Cooper met his birth father but that a part of him finally felt whole because he knew where he came from.

* * *

I stand holding a shopping bag as middle schoolers run past me. I always wondered if I'd be able to pick my son out in a crowd. I think the better question would have been would he have known me?

He came running out the door a few minutes later with a group of friends. I wave when I see him. At first I think he's going to run past me or flip me off but he isn't me. He stops in front of me and smiles. He's almost my height now.

"My dad said you were coming home. You're not sick anymore?" He looks into my eyes.

"Almost. Happy birthday," I hand him the bag. "Just wait for your father before you open it."

Sam had agreed to wait by his truck while I did this. Lucien looks surprised, like he can't imagine both his parents here together.

He smiles as he approaches, giving our son a hug before taking my hand.

"You like your present? He wished you'd come home," Sam explains.

I feel something in the pit of my stomach. In the past I would drink this feeling away but rehab had taught me to breath instead. It has been so long I forgot what joy feels like.

Sam gives my hand a squeeze. Our relationship still needs a lot of work but I know it'll be worth it in the end.

Lucien opens the bag, pulling out the sketchbook. I explain how his dad gave me a book just like this. I had sketched out his birth for him with drawings of Holly and Sam. He laughs at how shocked his dad looks in the drawings.

"Well I was pretty scared," Sam shrugged.

"Were you?" Lucien ask me.

"For a very long time," I admit.

"Are you still scared?" My son wants to know.

"I'm working on it," I promise, pulling him into a hug.

I let him go and he turns to the next page. It's blank.

"Aren't you going to finish it?" He closes the book and puts it back in the bag.

In time I'll show him the adventures Luc has with Barley but not now and not in this book. This is his.

"It's not mine to finish. This is your story."


End file.
